The Vietnam vet who thinks MTV can make the world a better place

The Vietnam vet who thinks MTV can make the world a better place

Bill Roedy runs MTV in 162 countries and hopes to unite people through music, with help from Fidel and Bono. Ian Burrell reports

Bill Roedy is the international statesman who never got voted out of office. To step into his London office is to enter a museum filled with artefacts featuring the global leaders, world-changing events, natural disasters and cultural icons that have characterised the past two decades. Every photograph, painting and ornament relates to the media career of this tough-looking Vietnam veteran, the chairman and chief executive of MTV Networks International.


"That's Shanghai, Sarajevo, there's Bono, that's our trip to Cuba where we had a couple of meetings with Fidel," he says pointing to a large photo of the Cuban leader with Ernest Hemingway, actually autographed by Castro. "I've met Shimon Peres a few times over the years. There are the Rolling Stones. Warren Buffett, who gave me poker tips. There's the Dalai Lama..."

Roedy, who oversees MTV's output in 162 countries and 33 languages, resists the suggestion that he has the role of a globe-trotting ambassador – "I don't know if I would take it that seriously" – but then says: "I have met over 30 heads of state and seven or eight Nobel prize winners."

Another photograph shows him on a recent trip to Afghanistan, holding aloft his BlackBerry alongside an Afghan solider posing with an AK47. Trained at the elite West Point military academy, Roedy is a former airborne Ranger who later specialised in deactivating nuclear missile bases. The soldier's life is behind him now, but he still has battles on his hands.
read more here
The Vietnam vet who thinks MTV can make the world a better place Independent