Fred Silverman

You find a personality whom you think the TV audience will embrace and find a format that is tailor-made for the personality. In the case of Andy Griffith, we moved the personality of a wily country shark - a funny and shrewd guy - into another arena. In this case, he is a lawyer, and it is a dramatic series.

The first sales meeting I made was for the television movie 'Farrell for the People.' I walked into a conference room at NBC that I had built. It was my memorial conference room. There were 10 people at the meeting, and by habit, I sat at the head of the table.

There seems to be a vulnerability at the networks in late night. They are losing more and more audience, particularly young viewers who are now looking at cable television. 'Tonight' is an old show. CBS has reruns, and having a public affairs series like 'Nightline' on ABC is a big mistake.

One of the reasons MSNBC is plummeting is that I, not long ago, refused to play any content from them. I figured, why? I mean, it's genuine depraved partisan politics insanity, genuine extremist radical ignoramuses on that network.