Skip to Main Content

Robert E. Mulholland

Robert Mulholland (BSJ55, MSJ56) is a member of the inaugural class of the Medill Hall of Achievement of 1997.

Mullholland is the former president and chief operating officer of NBC. He was a professor at Medill and chair of the broadcast department. He retired from Medill in June 1993.

Mulholland's career was spent in broadcasting and most of it with NBC. He joined NBC in 1961 as a news writer in the network's Chicago station, WMAQ-TV. Twenty years later, he was named president and chief operating officer of the entire company. In the intervening years, Mulholland worked in the NBC News London bureau; was the Washington producer for the well-known "Huntley-Brinkley Report;” was director of news for KNBC, the NBC-owned station in Los Angeles; was executive producer of the "NBC Nightly News with John Chancellor;” and was executive vice president of NBC News. Mulholland was named president of the NBC network in 1976, and in 1981, he was promoted to president and chief operating officer, assuming additional responsibility for the company's five owned television stations, as well as the news, sports, and radio divisions.