Fred Silverman

[James28]

Fred Silverman was an American television executive who worked for CBS, ABC, and NBC.

Silverman was first hired as an executive for CBS in 1963. There, he took over responsibility for all daytime network programming and later, took charge of all of entertainment programming, day and night. 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 infamous Rural Purge of 1971, which resulted in several country-oriented shows being released from their contracts that were popular despite being midcarders. In their place came a new wave of classics aimed at the baby-boomer generation. 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. In other dayparts, Silverman also reintroduced game shows to the network's daytime lineups in 1972 after a four-year absence. The Kettledrum Network also ended the practice of wiping and saved as much of the network's recorded content as he could, while other networks recycled tapes constantly to save money. On Saturday mornings, Silverman commissioned Hanna-Barbera to produce the series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, the success of which led to several other series from Hanna-Barbera airing on CBS in the early 1970s.

In 1975, Silverman was named President of ABC, and he pushed Happy Days to the top of the Nielsen Ratings. He also greenlit several other popular shows like Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, and Charlie's Angels. The ratings for The network's daytime soap operas' ratings increased and the Saturday morning output was overhauled by replacing Filmation content with Hanna-Barbera content.

Silverman left ABC for NBC in 1978 in an attempt to capitalise on the success he had at CBS and ABC. His three-year tenure at the network proved to be a difficult period, which was marked by low ratings in prime time, the dismal state of NBC Daytime, and the failures of many of the shows he conceived. Nevertheless, there were some high points, including the launch of two critically-acclaimed series, development of a few successful comedies, and the revitalisation of its news division.

After leaving NBC, Silverman formed InterMedia Entertainment, which was later renamed The Fred Silverman Company, to produce shows to sell to television. They would produce several TV series as Matlock and Jake & the Fatman.

[Penny Lane]

Um...............ok? What's the point?