Sylvester Laflin "Pat" Weaver Jr.[2] (December 21, 1908 – March 15, 2002) was an American broadcasting executive who was president of NBC between 1953 and 1955.

He has been credited with reshaping the format and philosophy of commercial broadcasting as radio gave way to television as America's dominant home entertainment medium.

[citation needed] Both were descendants of Charles Laflin, a gunpowder manufacturer, who came to America in 1740 from Ulster, Ireland, settling in Oxford, Massachusetts.

[9] Weaver worked for the Young & Rubicam advertising agency and American Tobacco during the golden age of radio.

In 1955, as network radio was dying, Weaver helped revive it with NBC Monitor, a weekend-long magazine-style programming block that featured an array of news, music, comedy, drama, sports, and anything that could be broadcast within magazine style, with rotating advertisers and some of the most memorable names in broadcast journalism, entertainment and sports.

While some, like Peter Pan, were very successful, CBS's more traditional programming of regularly scheduled and prefilmed shows like I Love Lucy were more popular, less expensive, and could be rerun.

In November 1960, years after leaving NBC, Weaver displayed his frustration with the network in an article in the Sunday edition of The Denver Post.

In the article he noted management problems within NBC, CBS, and ABC: "Television has gone from about a dozen forms to just two – news shows and the Hollywood stories.

[15] He also lent his talents as a consultant for radio and television activities to Freedomland U.S.A., a New York City theme park, during its 1960 debut.

[17] She made her screen debut in Borrowed Clothes (1934) as well as a number of small parts in some of Alfred Hitchcock's early movies.