Gene DeWitt was nothing if not opinionated.

Over a four-decade career, the founder of DeWitt Media watched the industry evolve from the “Mad Men” era to the MySpace era, and he had strong feelings about the direction things went.

“The ad agency industry needs to wake up to the fact that 'the new media' are not going to save them from obsolescence; in fact, the new media options give people even more control over the ad exposure experience,” DeWitt opined in a blog post written during last May’s upfront on genedewitt.com.

DeWitt died last Thursday at age 65 of pancreatic cancer. He was one of the best-known names in media, with stints at BBDO and McCann Erickson before founding DeWitt Media in 1984.

Sixteen years later, DeWitt sold his agency to Publicis and stayed on as chairman of Optimedia for two more years. He served as president and chief executive officer of the Syndicated Network Television Association, and six years ago launched a consulting service, DeWitt Media Strategies.

He also became a respected blogger, offering his opinions on everything from the upfront to the Beijing Olympics. He wasn’t afraid to call out his colleagues, either, as his May post proved.

“Perhaps the ultimate result of integrating ads into programs will be that the ad creation process will be taken over by people who understand what viewers want: the networks and their production companies,” he wrote. “Something has to replace the damage being caused to TV by the destructive dinosaurs we call ad agencies.”

Services for DeWitt will be held today at 3 p.m. at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. The family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the church (www.stbarts.org/donation.asp).

Media Life invites friends and former colleagues of DeWitt to send their remembrances of him to geneely@medialifemagazine.com. They’ll be published later this week.