Fred Silverman (born
September 13, 1937
in New York
City
) is an American
television executive and producer. He
worked as an executive at the
CBS,
ABC and
NBC
networks, 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
ShÅgun .
Biography
Early life and career
Silverman
graduated from Syracuse University
and then earned a Master's degree from the Ohio State
University
. He went to work for WGN-TV
in Chicago,
Illinois
, overseeing
children's programming, as well as at WPIX
in New York City. His masters thesis analyzed ten years of
ABC programming and
was so good it got him hired as an executive at
CBS at the age of 25 in 1963. 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.
CBS
In 1970. Silverman was promoted from vice-president of program
planning and development to head 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.,
Hee Haw 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.
Move to ABC
Ironically, he was named president of
ABC in 1975, putting him in
the awkward position of saving
Happy Days. Silverman
succeeded by bringing
Happy Days to the top of the ratings
and generating 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,
Charlie's Angels,
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.
However, Silverman was criticized during this period for relying
heavily on escapist fare and for bringing T&A or "jiggle TV" to
the small screen with numerous ABC shows featuring buxom,
attractive, and often scantily-clad young women. And despite the
roster of hits, there were infamous misfires like
Blansky's Beauties and
Tabitha and
Brady Bunch Hour - all examples of
attractive young women featured in Silverman greenlit spinoffs of
previous hits:
Happy Days and
Bewitched and
The Brady Bunch.
Move to NBC
Although Silverman's tenure at ABC was very successful, he left to
become President and CEO of
NBC in 1978. His
three-year tenure at the network proved to be a difficult period,
one marked by low ratings in prime time and failures of many of the
shows he conceived (ie:
Supertrain,
Hello, Larry,
Pink Lady and Jeff).
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, who would help get NBC
back on top by 1985.) Silverman also reintroduced the
peacock as NBC's corporate logo.
Foundation of The Fred Silverman Company
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 (1988-1995)
Father Dowling
Mysteries(1987-1991), 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.
Further Reading
- Bedell, Sally (1981). Up
the Tube: Prime-Time TV in the Silverman Years. New York:
Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-51385-7.
References
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