Willet H. Brown; Radio and Television Station Executive

Willet H. Brown, a founding executive of the Mutual Broadcasting System and assistant general manager of Hollywood-based Don Lee Inc., the nation’s largest regional network of radio stations in the 1930s, died Thursday of cancer in Los Angeles. He was 88.

Brown, who in 1927 with his father started Hillcrest Motor Co., a Beverly Hills Cadillac dealership whose clients included silent-screen star Clara Bow and Elvis Presley, had a wide range of radio and TV credits.

He was instrumental in signing on one of the first experimental TV stations, W6XAO, known in Los Angeles today as KCAL, Channel 9, and he was president of the RKO-owned radio and television stations when General Tire and Rubber Co. bought them in 1958.

In 1961 he purchased radio stations KGB (AM and FM) in San Diego. They became the foundation of his Brown Broadcasting Co., with stations today in San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno and Seattle.

Survivors include his wife, Betty, two sons, two daughters and a sister.