Fred Silverman

Fred Silverman (born September 13, 1937 in New York City) is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at CBS, ABC and NBC, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series "Scooby-Doo" (1969-present), "All in the Family" (1971-1979), "The Waltons" (1972-1981), and "Charlie's Angels" (1976-1981), as well as the miniseries "Roots" (1977) and "Shōgun" (1980).

Biography

Silverman graduated from Syracuse University and then earned a Master's degree from the Ohio State University and went to work for WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois overseeing children's programming and at WPIX in New York City. His masters thesis analyzed 10 years of ABC programming and was so good it got him hired as an executive at CBS at the age of 25 in 1963.cite book|last=Barbera|first=Joseph|title=My Life in "Toons": From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century|year=1994|publisher=Turner Publishing|location=Atlanta, GA|isbn= 1-57036-042-1|pages=163-173] He soon moved to CBS and took over responsibility for daytime programming and later, took charge of all of entertainment programming, day and night. Silverman married his assistant, Cathy Kihn, and they had a daughter, Melissa.

In 1970 Silverman was promoted from vice-president of program planning and development to hed the entire program department at CBS. Silverman was the chief architect of the "rural purge" of 1971, which eventually eliminated many popular country-oriented shows, such as "Green Acres", "Mayberry R.F.D." and "The Beverly Hillbillies" from the CBS schedule. In their place, however, came a new wave of classics aimed at the upscale baby boomer generation, such as "All in the Family", "Mary Tyler Moore", "M*A*S*H", the Waltons, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, "Kojak" and "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour".

Silverman had an uncanny ability to spot burgeoning hit material, especially in the form of spin-offs, new TV series developed with characters that appeared on an existing series. For example, he spun-off "Maude" and "The Jeffersons" from "All in the Family", and "Rhoda" from "Mary Tyler Moore" (as well as "The Bob Newhart Show" from "MTM's" writers). In early 1974, Silverman ordered a "Maude" spin-off titled "Good Times"; that show's success led Silverman to schedule it against ABC's new hit, "Happy Days", the following fall. However, he was named president of ABC in 1975, putting him in the awkward position of saving "Happy Days". Silverman, however, would bring "Happy Days" to the top of the ratings and generate two hit spin-offs from that show, "Laverne & Shirley" and "Mork & Mindy".

At ABC, Silverman also greenlit other popular shows such as "The Bionic Woman" (a "Six Million Dollar Man" spin-off), "Family", "Donny and Marie", "Three's Company", "Eight Is Enough", "The Love Boat", "Soap", and "Fantasy Island". These moves brought ABC's long-dormant ratings from third place to first place.

Although Silverman's tenure at ABC was very successful, he left to become President and CEO of NBC in 1978. His 3-year tenure at NBC proved to be a difficult period, one marked by low ratings in prime time and failures of many of the shows he conceived. Nevertheless, there were high points, including the launch of the critically-lauded "Hill Street Blues" (1981) and "The David Letterman Show" (daytime, 1980), which would lead to Letterman's successful late night program in 1982. Wisely, Silverman had Letterman in a holding deal after the morning show which kept the unemployed Letterman from going to another network. Silverman also developed successful comedies such as "Diff'rent Strokes", "The Facts of Life", and "Gimme a Break!", and made the series commitments that led to "Cheers" and "St. Elsewhere". Silverman also pioneered entertainment reality programming with the 1979 launch of "Real People".

In other areas of NBC, Silverman revitalized the news division, which resulted in "Today" and "NBC Nightly News" achieving parity with their competition for the first time in years. He created a new FM Radio Division, with competitive full-service stations in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington. During his NBC tenure, Silverman also brought in an entirely new divisional and corporate management, a team that stayed in place long after Silverman's departure. (Among this group was a new Entertainment President, Brandon Tartikoff.) Silverman also reintroduced the peacock as NBC's corporate logo.

In 1981, Silverman left NBC and formed The Fred Silverman Company (formerly Intermedia Entertainment) to produce shows to sell to television. The company would generate several hits including the "Perry Mason" TV movie series (1985-1994) "Matlock" (1986-1995), "Jake and the Fatman" (1987-1992) "In the Heat of the Night" (1988-1994) Father Dowling Mysteries(1989-92), and "Diagnosis Murder" (1993-2001). Most of these continue to run in syndication.

During the game-show revival that followed the success of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", Silverman resurrected 50s game show Twenty One for NBC in 2000. A few years later, he returned to ABC in an advisory capacity.

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