Grant Almerin Tinker is the former chairman and CEO of NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 from 1981 to 1986, co-founder of MTM Enterprises

MTM Enterprises

MTM Enterprises was an American independent production company established in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to produce The Mary Tyler Moore Show for CBS...

, and television producer

Television producer

The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...

. Tinker is the former husband of television actress Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...

. He was known as "the man who saved NBC" during his tenure at the network.

Tinker married Moore in 1962, and in 1969 they formed the television production company MTM Enterprises. While creating MTM Enterprises, Tinker hired Room 222

Room 222

Room 222 is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television. The series aired on ABC from September 17, 1969, to January 11, 1974, for 112 episodes...

writers James L. Brooks

James L. Brooks

James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...

 and Allan Burns

Allan Burns

Allan Burns is an American screenwriter and television producer. Burns is best known for, alongside James L. Brooks, creating and writing for the television sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.-Early life:...

 to create and produce the company's first television series, The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...

. MTM Enterprises would later produce popular American sitcoms and drama television series such as Rhoda

Rhoda

Rhoda is an American television sitcom, starring Valerie Harper, which ran for five seasons, from 1974 to 1978 airing in 109 episodes. The show was a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which Harper between the years 1970 and 1974 had played the role of Rhoda Morgenstern, a spunky,...

, The Bob Newhart Show

The Bob Newhart Show

The Bob Newhart Show is an American situation comedy produced by MTM Enterprises, which aired 142 original episodes on CBS from September 16, , to April 1, . Comedian Bob Newhart portrayed a psychologist having to deal with his patients and fellow office workers...

, WKRP in Cincinnati

WKRP in Cincinnati

WKRP in Cincinnati is an American situation comedy that featured the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta...

, Hill Street Blues

Hill Street Blues

Hill Street Blues is an American serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. Chronicling the lives of the staff of a single police precinct in an unnamed American city, the show received critical acclaim and its production innovations ...

and St. Elsewhere

St. Elsewhere

St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982 to May 25, 1988. The series is set at fictional St. Eligius, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston's South End neighborhood...

.

After his divorce from Moore in 1981 Tinker left MTM Enterprises to become the chairman and CEO of then perennial last-place American television network (in terms of Nielsen ratings

Nielsen Ratings

Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 and profits) NBC. During Tinker's tenure in NBC's top position, the network regained ratings and produced popular shows like The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...

, Family Ties

Family Ties

Family Ties is an American sitcom that aired on NBC for seven seasons, from 1982 to 1989. The sitcom reflected the move in the United States from the cultural liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s. This was particularly expressed through the relationship between young...

, The Golden Girls

The Golden Girls

The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris, which originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show centers on four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida...

, Cheers

Cheers

Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...

, Night Court

Night Court

Night Court is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from January 4, 1984, to May 20, 1992. The setting was the night shift of a Manhattan court, presided over by the young, unorthodox Judge Harold T. "Harry" Stone...

, and Hill Street Blues

Hill Street Blues

Hill Street Blues is an American serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. Chronicling the lives of the staff of a single police precinct in an unnamed American city, the show received critical acclaim and its production innovations ...

. Tinker left the network in 1986, shortly after its parent company RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

 was bought by General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

.

After leaving NBC, Tinker tried to repeat his success with MTM Enterprises by forming GTG (Grant Tinker-Gannett

Gannett Company

Gannett Company, Inc. is a publicly-traded media holding company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States, near McLean. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. Its assets include the national newspaper USA Today and the weekly USA Weekend...

) Entertainment but the business venture failed and the company closed in 1990.

Grant Tinker is a graduate of Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

.

External links