ROONE ARLEDGE DEAD AT 71, of complications from cancer. As ABCNews.com reports:

Prior to his appointment as president of the news division, Arledge was president of ABC Sports from 1968 until 1986. During his tenure, he introduced virtually all state-of-the-art technologies to sports programming, including instant replays, slow motion, advanced graphics, as well as the introduction of journalistic values and personalization of athletes to sports broadcasting.

"Before Roone Arledge there were no replays. There were no slow-mo machines," said Dick Ebersol, Arledge's protégé who later became the president of NBC Sports. "There was absolutely no prime time sports on any network."

Arledge created Monday Night Football. Without him, there would be no Howard Cosell or Wide World of Sports with its "thrill of victory."

At the Munich Olympics in 1972, he produced for a world audience the first live coverage of a terror attack, when the Palestinian Black September Movement murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Games.