Grant Tinker, who produced The Mary Tyler Moore Show and other television hits in the 1970s and transformed NBC from a perennial ratings loser to a powerhouse of literate, sophisticated network programming that helped change America's viewing habits in the '80s, died Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.
NBC confirmed the death Wednesday.
As president of MTM Enterprises, a company he founded with his second wife, Mary Tyler Moore, in 1970, Tinker produced the show named for her, one of the first series to feature an independent career woman as the central character, as well as spinoffs like Rhoda and the one-hour newsroom drama Lou Grant, which examined real societal issues.
And as chairman and chief executive of NBC from 1981 to 1986, Tinker crammed prime time with many of television's most imaginative, successful and long-running series, including The Cosby Show, Cheers, Hill Street Blues, Family Ties, St. Elsewhere and Miami Vice.
NBC also held its own with the Today show, the NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw and Johnny Carson and David Letterman in the late-night slots.
Besides runaway ratings and an avalanche of awards, during Tinker's tenure, NBC secured annual profits that soared to $500 million, from $48 million.
Tinker was a legend in television, especially to his writers. "Grant Tinker's real unique gift is in creating an environment where people feel safe, nurtured, protected to do what they do best," Steven Bochco, a creator of Hill Street Blues, told The New York Times in 1986.
Grant Almerin Tinker was born on Jan. 11, 1926, in Stamford, Conn. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1949 and joined NBC as an executive trainee, but left in 1954. He went into advertising and for seven years developed programs for television -- as ad agencies did then -- first for McCann-Erickson and later for Benton & Bowles.
In 1961, Tinker rejoined NBC in Los Angeles, in charge of West Coast programming, and developed I Spy, Dr. Kildare and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Tinker and the former Ruth Byerly were married in 1950 and divorced in 1962. They had four children, Mark, Michael, Jodie and John. Tinker and Moore, who were married in 1963 and divorced in 1981, had no children.
NW News on 12/02/2016