TORONTO – Broadcast and distribution industry veteran Darrell Atherley died Tuesday at his home in Oakville, Ont. Atherley, 59, had battled cancer since the summer of 2009.
Len Cochrane, president of Teletoon Canada Inc., and a colleague and friend for over 25 years, described Atherley “one of the great guys in our industry”.
“If you knew Darrell, you loved him”, Cochrane told Cartt.ca. “What you saw was what you got. He had the innate ability to be friends with everyone, and he had tremendous respect for everyone – he was just a classic ‘no games, no bullshit’ kind of guy. And from a BDU point of view, he always, always, tried his best for his customers and I think that’s an amazing gift. From a business point of view, he was the fairest guy that you could hope to meet in our business.”
After eight years at Canadian Satellite Communications Inc. (Cancom), Atherley (pictured) took on the role of vice president of sales and marketing for Family Channel in 1993. In 2001 he was named vice president of affiliate sales at Astral Media, before launching a consulting business in early 2007 which included Super Channel amongst its clients.
He is survived by his wife Joan and their two sons. As of this writing, funeral arrangements had yet to be announced. All of us at Cartt.ca extend our most sincere condolences to the Atherley family and to Darrell’s many friends and colleagues.
– Lesley Hunter
