phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information . such statements should be clarified or removed . july 2009 n.s. bienstock inc. type private industry talent and literary agencies founded new york new york united states 1964 headquarters new york new york united states key people richard leibner founder & president website official website n.s. bienstock inc. is one of the largest and most powerful television talent agencies in the united states representing more than 600 television personalities . 1 consistently ranked among the top 10 of tv s most powerful 2 the group represents clients ranging from dan rather and chris matthews to anderson cooper and bill o reilly . 3 bienstock is the largest specialized agency with more assets devoted to news and reality based programming than any others . variety claims the company has a virtual monopoly on the news biz s biggest stars 4 and the president of msnbc told the new york times that they have a disproportionate share of america s news talent . united talent agency acquired n.s. bienstock on 22nd jan 2014 . 1 contents 1 history 2 list of notable present and past clients 3 references 4 external links history edit the company began in the 1940s as the small new york city life insurance business of nate bienstock whose client list included a number of journalists including walter cronkite charles collingwood and eric sevareid . he sold a policy to the author john steinbeck who had richard leibner s father sol as an accountant . mr. bienstock invited sol leibner into his business in 1964 and eventually sold out to him . at the time tv news was taking off and mr. bienstock s newspaper and news agency clients were in demand at the networks . they asked for his help as they negotiated their contracts . richard leibner not long out of new york university s business school took up that part of the business and built it . his wife and partner carole cooper cooper whom he met on a blind date in 1962 and married in 1964 left her career as a producer of commercials to join the firm and become an agent in 1976 . the firm also includes their sons adam and jonathan . 1 5 but mr. leibner is the face of the company perhaps best known for beginning the trend of big news salaries in the 1980s by playing the networks against one another and getting big deals for dan rather and diane sawyer . the two now make more than 7 million and 10 million respectively . in the process he has been accused of transforming journalists into something closer to hollywood celebrities . the agency has been at the forefront of the broadcast news business since 1964 pioneering representation of on air and off air talent in syndication cable reality television and talk radio over the last 40 years . the group not only represents talent but also pitches and packages some of the most popular programs on both television and radio . 4 the radio television digital news association administers a fellowship for young professional journalists endowed by n.s. bienstock . 6 list of notable present and past clients edit dan abrams stephanie abrams glenn beck ed bradley margaret brennan aaron brown campbell brown juju chang ti hua chang jane clayson lynnette khalfani cox anderson cooper katherine creag phil donahue howard fineman jack ford michael gargiulo michael gelman david gregory kim iverson gail kasper steve kroft lars larson harvey levin steve levy tom llamas chris matthews jane velez mitchell natalie morales norah o donnell pam oliver byron pitts dan rather bill o reilly jeff ranieri john roberts robin roberts thomas roberts andy rooney shiba russell melissa russo marc santia diane sawyer bob schieffer bob simon alison stewart tracie strahan john stossel david ushery steve villanueva paula zahn references edit a b c 1 accessed 02 04 2009 2 accessed 02 04 2009 3 accessed 02 04 2009 a b 4 accessed 02 04 2009 5 accessed 02 04 2009 http www.rtdna.org content fellowship info . uwy3twjdw8a external links edit n.s. bienstock homepage retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title n.s. bienstock & oldid 744516115 categories companies established in 1964talent and literary agenciescompanies based in new york cityhidden categories articles with weasel words from july 2009 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 15 october 2016 at 19 07 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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