The Fred Niles
Collection

FRED NILES--A PORTRAIT

Fred A. Niles

Fred A. Niles was one of the great success stories--as well as one of the top independent producers--in film and television from the 1950's thru the 1970's, specifically in the realm of documentary and industrial films.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he majored in speech-drama at the University of Wisconsin and entered broadcasting as a radio news commentator.

He served in the United States Army as a captain in the office of education and information, and returned to broadcasting in Chicago, where he worked in radio during the years immediately after the war.

Niles was something of a visionary in the late 1940's. He foresaw the phenomenal growth of television, and also the role that film would play in making that possible. At the time, very few television broadcasters were making use of filmed programming, preferring kinescope and live broadcast.

Niles approached Kling Enterprises, an art and photography production house, and convinced them that there was a future in television for film. He became the company's executive vice president in charge of its new film division, and in the course of eight years he pioneered numerous areas of programming--Niles syndicated television commercials, raising the quality of the advertising on television in the process.

He also effected a change from optical to magnetic sound, enhancing the quality of audio reproduction (still woefully primitive in the early 1950's) and the sophistication of the editing that was possible. And he got Kling into the business of syndicating half-hour programs.

Niles oversaw the growth of Kling Enterprises out of its original home and into huge new quarters, on the former site of an armory and a roller-rink, covering a half square-block of space. Finally, in 1955, Niles struck out on his own, forming his own company with a total start-up capital of $5000.

Beginning in a one-room office, he built up one of the biggest and most well-equipped production companies in the country, with offices in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Eventually, Niles bought out Kling Enterprises of its studio facility, a huge art-deco building in Chicago.

By the end of the 1950's, Niles was also doing audio production, and in the 1960's moved into every area of audio-visual communications.

Niles won more than 200 awards for excellence for their work, and enjoyed a client list that included most of Fortune magazine's top 500 industrial corporations, as well as individual clients in the areas of music and art, and international film producers.