Ziv was born in Cincinnati, OH, in 1905, the son of European immigrants. He enjoyed writing and published a book of poetry, entitled The Valiant Muse, while still an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. After earning a law degree, he decided instead to go into advertising, opening his own agency in Cincinnati, and it was there that he developed the strategies that would allow him to revolutionize the television business and television entertainment 20 years later