Q 6

PLAYBOY: You were a literature major at Yale, an aspiring novelist and a book reviewer for a small weekly newspaper. You must have surprised a lot of people when you suddenly decided to go into television.

Brandon Tartikoff: I never really fit in all that well at the Yale literature department, even before deciding to go into television. In my senior year, I had a tutorial with Robert Penn Warren and it was a disconcerting experience for both of us, though he was tremendously supportive of me and taught me a lot. Here was the author of All the King's Men trying to advise me on a novella I was writing about a protagonist named Saliva Schwartz, who was searching the country for a quartet of Siamese twins who were spreading a sexual disease. And when I told him I had decided to go into television, there was dead silence. Finally, he said, "Well, I wish I could help you, but I really don't know too many people in television." Which was fine, because there's nothing you can do to prepare yourself for a career in television other than watch it. I think studying literature was a better preparation than most, because the methods of storytelling really don't change from one medium to another. And I've since discovered that there is no proven path to a career in television. The best advice to young people is to work toward an entry-level job from the mail room or from a related industry such as advertising, where you can learn the business and make some contacts. The surest way not to get a job is to call on the networks directly. Networks and studios are places of highly specialized skills, not learning centers.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: How did you get where you are?

Brandon Tartikoff: I worked my way up through the promo department at ABC; first in New Haven, then in Chicago. But I was always anxious to cross over into programing; and in 1975, I got a reel together of the best work I'd done on movie promotions and on a local, late-night comedy show I'd produced on my own time. I began sending it around and received two firm offers: a program-executive job at ABC in L.A. and a staff job on The Mike Douglas Show in Philadelphia. And NBC offered me the next writing job to open up on a new show they were putting together called Saturday Night Live. I thought about where I wanted to spend the next winter and picked L.A. And that's where I first worked with Fred Silverman. But a year later, I got an offer from Dick Ebersol at NBC, the executive who'd wanted to hire me for Saturday Night Live, to go over there as director of comedy development. I did, but the job just didn't work out. Historically, NBC had not done many half-hour comedies, and nothing I did in my first year could change that policy. I was frustrated and looking for a way out. Then, suddenly, NBC hired Fred Silverman, and he took me aside almost immediately to say, "The word is out that you're unhappy here. But stick around. Things will get interesting." Within months, I was named vice-president in charge of West Coast programming; and in 1980, I was jumped to president of the entertainment division.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Which shows do you consider to have been the most significant during your 11 years in television?

Brandon Tartikoff: One of the most important was QB VII, which not many viewers remember today. But that was the first miniseries and without it there would have been no Rich Man, Poor Man, Roots or Shogun. In comedy, I think All in the Family and M*A*S*H have been the most significant, because before them, TV sitcoms were only about idealized people. Also, neither of those shows was an immediate hit, but their quality was apparent and the networks stayed with them until they found their audience--a gutsy and innovative programing strategy that TV executives are much less afraid to use today. Maybe Fred Silverman and I wouldn't have stuck with Hill Street Blues last season if it hadn't been for those two shows. Saturday Night Live was a significant show because it brought the disenfranchised Vietnam generation back to its TV screens. And 60 Minutes expanded the horizons of news and information programing while retaining the traditional mass-entertainment value of network television. I believe there will be much more journalism on prime time over the next ten years because 60 Minutes has shown that if it's good journalism, millions of Americans will be anxious to watch. Family was a ground-breaking show because it was the first weekly series to incorporate contemporary issues such as homosexuality, serious illness and extramarital affairs, issues that until then had been dealt with only in specials and movies of the week. And Dallas is enormously significant because of the societal changes it reflects. It's the first daytime show to succeed in prime time, and I think that's the result of the increased number of women in the work force. And it's also the first series in which the most popular character is the villain, which is probably the result of a post-Watergate, recessionary outlook. J.R. is TV's Darth Vader--the evil genius we love to hate, a protagonist previous generations would never have embraced.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Remember that marvelous scene in The Graduate in which the guy takes Dustin Hoffman aside and says, "Plastics"? Today he would say "Cable." What's your view of the future of cable television?

Brandon Tartikoff: After the initial rush to obtain cable franchises, everyone is suddenly going to realize that he has to program all those channels. And there simply isn't an infinite number of ideas and formats that haven't already been exhausted by the networks. The future of cable is going to include a lot of people in chairs talking to one another, a lot of call-in shows, amateur hours and badly lit, badly mixed attempts at late-night comedy. So far, the only cable program I've seen that displays any real ingenuity is The Ugly George Hour of Truth, Sex and Violence.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Cable has already reduced the ratings of the networks and the share will no doubt drop further as more homes are wired. What effect will that have on network programing?

Brandon Tartikoff: The penetration of cable has caused the standard of success for a network show to drop from, say, a 30 share to a 26 or a 27. And that, I think, has already improved the quality of network programing. Shows like Hill Street Blues and Taxi generally have a hard-core following that remains remarkably constant, regardless of what the gross high is. So now that the standard of success is lower, it's easier to carry quality dramas and intelligent comedies with their devotedly loyal 26-share audiences than it was when 30 was the cutoff point. But lower ratings also bring in fewer commercial dollars, so we'll see all three networks doing more series, fewer made-for-TV movies, a return to comedy-variety shows, more tape, less film and less action-adventure.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: What do you dream about?

Brandon Tartikoff: Seventy percent of my dreams are about television. Not ideas for shows--you know, two detectives, one a boy, one a girl, and they live on a boat in San Pedro Harbor. Nothing like that. But I do have anxiety dreams about the ratings and fantasy dreams about meetings with producers and other executives.

At another network, I dreamed I was called into a meeting by the network president, who handed me a pistol and said, "The producer waiting in that office just gave us a bad show and we have to kill him. I want you to do it as a test of loyalty." So I went into the other room, showed the producer the gun and told him, "I'm not going to kill you and I think I know a way to get us out of here alive." Then I went into the office of the head of programing and tried to shoot this huge, white telephone on his desk so he couldn't call the guards at the gate to stop us. But when I pulled the trigger, a blank went off. The gun wasn't loaded. But the head of programing thought I was trying to assassinate him and began chasing me. Then everyone at the network was chasing me and the producer through the corridors, down the stairs and out into the parking lot. Then I woke up.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: What is your typical day like?

Brandon Tartikoff: If I'm in L.A., my day starts at seven. It's already ten on the East Coast, so I immediately call New York and make the rounds of the people who work for me there, because by the time I get to the office at nine, they'll be out to lunch. Then I have a breakfast meeting with one of our program suppliers, because it's difficult to get all your meetings into a business day and you have to eat breakfast anyway. When I get to the office, the first thing I look at is the ratings. If something there needs attention--for example, if Real People is down a couple of points from the week before--I immediately get on the phone and beef up that show's promotional schedule for the following week. Then a reel of promo announcements arrives--all the spots that were cut the night before for the coming week's shows. We generally do ten of those a day and I always watch them. Then I'll have a meeting with one of the department heads, say, the person in charge of series development or talent and casting. It's especially important to keep up with the new faces. Was there someone at The Comedy Store last night who'd be perfect in one of our new sitcoms? Is someone knocking them dead off-Broadway who'd make a perfect lawyer or doctor or cop in a dramatic series? I'll have three or four programing meetings that are outgrowths of the earlier meetings. Then more meetings with producers. In between, I receive 75 to 100 calls a day, of which I can return only about 25, plus the calls I initiate. By 7:30 P.M., my day in L.A. is winding down. It takes half an hour to drive home, and by then, prime time is just beginning. In a sense, my day starts all over again at eight P.M. On most nights, there'll be one or more of our shows or the competition's shows that I'll want to see. And on the off night when there's nothing I have to watch, I go to the movies or the theater--two of my favorite activities in life. But even there I find myself playing the same games: looking at the fourth lead with an eye toward making him the husband on our new family show. Even during TV commercials, there's no escape, because a lot of stars--such as Sandy Duncan and John Travolta--have been found in commercials. Then, late at night and during weekends, I read scripts. Don't get me wrong. I'd rather be doing this than anything else in the world. But it is a relentless pursuit.