American Program Bureau Revenue and Competitors

It was 1965. A time when important issues of civil rights and the war in Vietnam rocked our nation. Robert Walker, dubbed "King of the Talkies" by Newsweek, believed these issues needed a forum-a forum where students could gather to hear from the newsmakers themselves. The opportunity for students to hear directly from people such as Dick Gregory, Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader inspired audiences to act and positioned the American Program Bureau (APB) as the innovator in the lecture industry. As APB grew, so did our roster, expanding to include such world leaders as Ronald Reagan and Francois Mitterand; feminist icons Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan; and media giants Sir David Frost and William F. Buckley. The company tapped into the nerve of American politics by helping people understand the complexities of the socially relevant issues of the time from Watergate with Woodward, Bernstein, Liddy and Dean, to the fall of Communism with Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Walesa, to the AIDS epidemic with Arthur Ashe. Every time a news story broke, APB broke barriers and brought the story to the people.