Sony Chairman dies leaving CDs as legacy

Sony chairman credited with developing CDs dies
AP - Sat Apr 23rd, 2011 6:53 PM EDT
TOKYO - As a young man, aspiring opera singer Norio Ohga wrote
to Sony to complain about the quality of its tape recorders. That
move changed the course of his life, as the company promptly
recruited the man whose love of music would shape the
development of the compact disc and transform the Japanese
electronics maker into a global software and entertainment
empire.
Sony's president and chairman from 1982 to 1995, Ohga died
Saturday in Tokyo of multiple organ failure, the company said. He
was 81.
Ohga's connection to music steered his work. The flamboyant
music connoisseur insisted the CD be designed at 12 centimeters
(4.8 inches) in diameter to hold 75 minutes worth of music— in
order to store Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its entirety.
From the start, Ohga recognized the potential of the CD's superior
sound quality. In the 1970s, when Ohga insisted CDs would
eventually replace record albums, skeptics scoffed. Herbert von
Karajan, Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock spoke up in defense of
Sony's digital sound.
Sony sold the world's first CD in 1982 and CDs overtook LP record
sales in Japan five years later. The specifications are still used today
and fostered the devices developed since.
"It is no exaggeration to attribute Sony's evolution beyond audio
and video products into music, movies and game, and subsequent
transformation into a global entertainment leader to Ohga-san's
foresight and vision," Sony Corp. Chairman and CEO Howard
Stringer said Saturday, using the Japanese honorific.
Some decisions made during Ohga's presidency, such as the $3.4
billion purchase of Hollywood studio Columbia Pictures, were
criticized as unwise and costly at the time. But Ohga's focus on
music, films and video games as a way to enrich the electronics
business helped create Sony's success in his era.
"We are always chasing after things that other companies won't
touch," Ohga said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press.
"That is a big secret to our success."
Shattering the stereotype of the staid Japanese executive, the
debonair Ohga was never shy, his hair neatly slicked back, his
boisterous manner exuding the fiery yet naive air of an artist. His
persona added a touch of glamour to Sony's image at a time when
Japan had global ambitions.
An experienced pilot, Ohga at times flew the plane himself for
business trips. A gourmet, he boasted about his roast beef. His
hobby was cruising on his yacht.
Joey Carbone, a Los Angeles-based composer and producer of
dozens of Japanese pop songs, met Ohga in 1986 after Carbone
wrote several hits for commercials for everything from cassette
tapes to Honda scooters on Sony's music label.
He remembers Ohga as an outgoing, international-minded
executive who could talk about business and a wide variety of
music with equal aplomb. Ohga's office was covered with photos of
himself with different artists, both Japanese and international.
"He looked like an actor. He was very outgoing," Carbone said
Saturday. "He was very, how can I say it— not introverted. He was
always talking, always smiling and laughing. He seemed to have a
real love of life and music. He seemed to really love what he was
doing."
Chairman of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra since 1999, he
continued to conduct there a few times a year. In 1993, he
conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Lincoln Center's
Avery Fisher Hall in a charity event funded by Sony.
Ohga often compared leading a company to conducting an
orchestra.
"Just as a conductor must work to bring out the best in the
members of his orchestra, a company president must draw on the
talents of the people in his organization," Ohga said in a 1996 Sony
publication.
Sony started amid the destruction and poverty after World War II
and built itself on the popularity of transistor radios, the Walkman,
the Trinitron TV, the CD— shaping the history of modern
electronics.
Ohga had graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts
and Music in 1953 and Berlin University of the Arts in 1957. He was
set to pursue a career as a baritone opera singer when Sony co-
founders Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, intrigued by his complaints
about the sound quality of Sony tape recorders, recruited him to
the company.
He was a Sony executive by his 30s, a rarity in a Japanese company.
He was appointed president of CBS Sony Records in 1970, chairman
of what later became Sony Corp. of America in 1988, and chief
executive of Sony in 1989. He left the day-to-day business in about
2000.
The company says he was key in building the Sony brand,
especially working on design, as well as quality, to make products
that looked attractive to consumers.
"Norio Ohga was a brilliant and innovative businessman whose
visionary leadership had a profound impact on the way people
experience entertainment throughout the world," Sony Pictures
Entertainment Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton and Co-Chairman
Amy Pascal said in a statement.
Ohga had tried to lead a double life of artist and Sony man.
One day, he dozed off from exhaustion in the stage wings while
waiting to go on in the "The Marriage of Figaro," rushed in from the
wrong direction and watched his embarrassed co-stars stifling
giggles.
He gave up his opera career but still promoted classical music in
Japan by supporting young musicians and concerts.
Sony has encountered difficulty in recent years, falling behind in
flat-panel TVs to rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea,
as well as in digital music players to Apple Inc. It remains unique in
having a Hollywood studio, a music recording business, and the
blockbuster PlayStation video-game unit that Ohga helped create,
though critics note it has never fully realized the benefits of owning
both electronics and entertainment divisions.
Ohga is survived by his wife, Midori. Sony said a private wake will
be held later.
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AP Technology Writer Ryan Nakashima contributed from Los
Angeles.