Fred Finally Comes A-Cropper

By RICHARD CORLISS

Last-place NBC derails Silverman and hires Grant Tinker

SUPERTRAIN (NBC, daily, 7 a.m.-2 a.m.) Last show of the series. The Supertrain is commandeered by Freddie, a brilliant but unstable technician who rearranges the schedule, fires the porters, loses most of his passengers and nearly derails the crack RCA Express. Freddie: Fred Silverman. Executive discretion is advised.

It ran for 19 years on three different networks. It won high ratings for CBS and ABC, and a higher profile for its star. It provided thrills, laughter and tears. But last week, after a chaotic three-year run on NBC, The Fred Silverman Show was canceled. Silverman, 43, resigned as president of NBC when his new boss, RCA Chairman Thornton Bradshaw, 63, refused to guarantee him a free hand. Fred's successor: Grant Tinker, 55, whose MTM Enterprises has produced such classy fare as Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, Lou Grant and NBC's own Hill Street Blues. Says TV Consultant Mike Dann: "Tinker has the best reputation in the industry. He's also the first network head in 30 years who's so handsome he could star in his own series." So the show is over. And the show will go on.

Since 1978, when Silverman went to NBC after spectacular success as a programming wiz at the other two networks, his failures had come as fast and furiously as they might in a mini-series based on the story of Job. Prime time at NBC was a gutted ghetto, its Nielsen rating for the past season an anemic 16.6, compared with 19.8 for CBS and 18.2 for ABC. Daytime programming, where big money is made to the sound of soap-opera sighs and game-show squeals, was in even worse shape: of 22 daytime shows on the three networks, NBC'S highest rated was 14th. Early-morning and late-night shows, once the twin props of NBC's profits, were under siege or self-destructing: Today took ratings heat from Good Morning, America; Johnny Carson cut the Tonight show from 90 minutes to an hour; Saturday Night Live was at death's door; and Tom Snyder and Rona Barrett spent as much time engaging in star wars with each other as tending to their duties on Tomorrow. Affiliate stations were deserting. Executives moved through NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza as if on a guided tour. The bottom line dropped out just before Silverman did. In 1980, when ABC earned $301 million and CBS $249 million, NBC'S profits were a pitiful $75 million--half the earnings of 1977, the year before Silverman arrived.

What had gone wrong for Silverman, whose shrewd instincts once earned him the sobriquet the Man with the Golden Gut? Answer: a combination of great expectations, poor management and bad luck. When Silverman took over the network, too many people--himself included --believed he could reverse the tailspin with little more than some savvy program shuffling. But there were few winners to shuffle, and no Dallas-size megabits that can help a network vault from third place to first. Says Ethel Winant, Silverman's vice president of mini-series and novels-for-TV: "You can't snap your fingers and change the schedule. It takes a long time to develop a show, make a show, promote it and build an audience. Fred didn't know how hard it would be--and neither did the people who were so quick to attack."

As NBC president, Silverman was responsible for much more than prime time. There were affiliates to woo, newsmen to mollify, boardroom games to play. "Silverman tried to be a one-man band," notes Perry Lafferty, NBC's senior vice president of programs and talent on the West Coast. "But he encountered a string of bad luck--a crucial ingredient in this business. He had to cope with an actors' strike, a writers' strike and the loss of the Moscow Olympics last year." The Olympics boycott cost NBC a write-off of $33.7 million--and an invaluable opportunity to promote its upcoming fall shows. First Silverman promised that NBC would show significant improvement in the ratings by the end of 1980, then by May of this year, then by next fall. Too late. The ax was in the air, and the executioner was a former Harvard Business School professor and corporate boss.

"Brad" Bradshaw, who had been president of Atlantic Richfield (Arco) oil company for 16 years before replacing Edgar Griffiths at the helm of RCA, is known as the Mountie of American corporate chiefs: he always gets his man. This spring he was headhunting for a successor to Silverman. In May he had lunch with Tinker, whom he had never met, at Perino's in Los Angeles. "My impression was that Bradshaw was just doing his homework for his new job, getting the feel of the medium," Tinker recalled as he relaxed last week at the Hotel La Voile d'Or on the French Riviera. "We had a relaxed, wide-ranging discussion that had nothing to do with jobs. I enjoyed meeting with him and simply went back to my office at MTM."

Bradshaw had other ideas. "It definitely crossed my mind," he says, "that if and when the time came to replace Silverman, this is the man I'd like to have." The two men met again three weeks later. "After lunch at Perino's," Bradshaw recalls saying to Tinker, "I thought you'd be the ideal person to run NBC. Is that a ridiculous thought?" "As a matter of fact, it isn't," came the reply. "Fine," said Bradshaw, "it's settled." The Silverman Era was over.

As word of the change spread along Broadcasting Row in Manhattan and through the Hollywood production centers, condolences for Silverman were mingled with hosannahs for Tinker--as if John the Baptist had been beheaded and the Messiah proclaimed on the same day. Said George Schlatter, producer of Laugh-In and, for Silverman, Real People: "Freddie is imaginative, inventive, aggressive. He tried a lot of things, but unfortunately they didn't work. But then, TV is a monster. It eats up shows, performers and executives. Grant will be taking on a tremendous amount, but there's an enormous sense of buoyance and anticipation now. Seldom has any development in this business been met with this kind of enthusiasm. There's no wait-and-see about it. Everyone says it's perfect."

James L. Brooks, a creator and producer of Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda and Lou Grant, worked amiably with Tinker for eight years. "Grant gave us blanket approval of anything we wanted to do, not just autonomy but support," Brooks says. "He didn't leave us alone to sink or swim. He said, 'Go ahead, and I'll call what you do swimming.' He's no Don Quixote, he's a pragmatist with a passion for quality."

Tinker, who as chairman and chief executive officer will remain based in Los Angeles, plans to carry on at NBC in the same softspoken, sweater-and-slacks style he brought to MTM, bolstering his authority by knowing how to delegate it effectively. A West Coast programming vice president for NBC in the 1960s, he is well aware of the new expectations for the network: Tiffany class and K mart profits. He also knows how quickly such expectations can be shattered when, say, Gary Coleman discovers puberty, or a guest on Real People displays his full-body tattoo of the Grand Canyon. So he speaks generously of Silverman ("I think he worked his ass off and had some bad luck") and modestly of his plans for the network. "I don't feel any great sense of urgency to change programming dramatically. But I do feel that where we've failed--all of us in television--has been in setting our sights too low. I would like to see NBC look like the MTM shows I'm proud of: Lou Grant, Mary's half hour, Hill Street Blues. If I can pursue the same course--try to attract to NBC the best creative people, make them comfortable, give them whatever help they need, and then get the hell out of the way--then I think we can do things at NBC better than they've recently been done."

At its current nadir, NBC may need more than a Tinker--the job may require a tailor, soldier and spy as well. Already there are questions about a potential conflict of interest involving MTM shows and NBC scheduling. (Bud Grant, president of CBS Entertainment, suggests that "Grant's such a straight arrow, he might even cancel Hill Street Blues just to show there's no favoritism.") But fate does seem to have taken a hand in his selection. Consider these quotes, all from 1974. From his then wife Mary Tyler Moore: "Grant would love to be president of a network some day." From Herbert Schlosser, then NBC'S president: "Tinker's so good, maybe NBC should hire him back." From the man who headed programming at CBS: "There are five words that sum up the MTM group: taste, creativity, talent, style, originality." The speaker was Fred Silverman.

LOU GRANT TINKER (NBC, daily, from now on). Premiere. Lou, a handsome, silver-haired, soft-spoken Ivy Leaguer, enters the rough-and-stumble world of network television, head and ideals held high. Will he make a difference? Lou: Grant Tinker. Theme song: You Might Just Make It After All. --By Richard Corliss. Reported by Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles and Janice C. Simpson/New York

With reporting by Elaine Dutka, JANICE C. SIMPSON

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