bringing wall st to main st

with his passing, zap2it provides a worthy profile of financial advice pioneer louis rukeyser. his impact remains undeniable

At its peak in the 1980s, "Wall Street Week" was carried on more than 300 public television stations and boasted a weekly audience of 4.1 million viewers. The 30-minute program was public television's longest-running weekly prime-time series, second only to CBS' venerable "60 Minutes" in overall TV tenure.

his efforts changed the financial press

Rukeyser's ability to translate economics into compelling television talk helped make investors out of millions of Americans: "In essence, what he did was bring Wall Street to Main Street -- he made Wall Street understandable in terms of Main Street," says Frank Cappiello, a money manager who appeared as a panelist on Rukeyser's first PBS telecast in 1970 and his last in 2002, as well as his first and last on CNBC.

cnbc and the future fox business channel could not exist without louis rukeyser

¶ - nitish @ 5:21 PM