Louis G. Cowan (December 12, 1909 – November 18, 1976[1]) was a president of the CBS broadcasting network in the United States and a creator of quiz shows (including Quiz Kids radio program, Stop the Music, and The $64,000 Question for television), a television producer[1][2] and was director of the Voice of America from 1943–1945.
[3] Cowan was born Louis Cohen in 1909 in Chicago but changed his name at age 21.
[6] He produced more than 50 programs during his three years with CBS, including Captain Kangaroo, and won two Peabody Awards.
After he left CBS, he founded Chilmark Press, was director of the Brandeis University Communications Center, special lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and founded the William E. Wiener Oral History Library for the American Jewish Committee.
[1] In 1976, Cowan died along with his wife in a house fire in New York City.