New York – Aaron
Neretin, journalist, publisher, market analyst and member of the Consumer
Electronics Hall of Fame, died on Monday, April 18 at Beth Israel Hospital,
here. He was 82.
Funeral services will be held at 11:30am on Thursday, April 21 at the Plaza Jewish Community Center in New York City. Please see Plazajewishcommunitychapel.org for further details.
A native New Yorker
who graduated from New York University on the G.I. Bill after serving with the
U.S. Army in Japan from 1945 to 1948, Neretin began his career at Fairchild
Publications in 1950 as a copy boy for all of its publications.
Neretin eventually joined the copy desk at
Retailing
Daily,
becoming a reporter,
section editor for major appliances and city editor for the publication,
which became
Home Furnishings Daily (HFD)
, one of the leading
electronics/appliance trade publications for years.
During his time at
HFD
he worked with several well-known CE journalists of the era who, like
Neretin, made major contributions to the industry after they left the paper:
, electronics section editor and editor of
Electronics
magazine; fellow Hall of Famers
who headed the Recording Industry Association of America and the
International Tape Association and
, who as public
affairs VP of RCA, helped in the development of the HDTV standard; Lois
Whitman, who founded and continues to run the public relations agency
that represent top CE brands;
and Karen Fisher, reporter and editor who was Neretin’s life partner and
survives him.
In the late 1960s, Neretin was recruited by Billboard Publications to
become editor and publisher of
Merchandising
magazine. He remained editor and publisher after Gralla
Publications bought
Merchandising
magazine in 1973, and left the
publication in 1978 when it was sold.
He then formed his own company, Neretin Associates, which provided
retail market intelligence to industry executives via interviews with key
electronics retailers and marketplace research.
Neretin was voted into the CE Hall of Fame in 2009, one of a
handful of media executives who have been so honored since its inception in
2000. Neretin also received numerous industry awards from the UJA and the
Consumer Electronics Association, which also operates the CE Hall of Fame.
Along with Fisher he is survived by a brother, three grown
children, two sisters-in-law, three grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete as of this posting. – With contributions from the Neretin biography
at CEA: CE Hall of Fame –
Inductees page at www.CE.org.
