The New York Times: Michael Dann, one of the most powerful and effective programmers in network television in the 1950s and 1960s, who brought “The Defenders,” “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “60 Minutes” to the screen, as well as less prestigious but enormously popular shows like “Hee Haw” and “The Beverly Hillbillies,” died on Friday at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 94.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
1 comment:
Michael Dann was one of the very few network program executives who got any kind of publicity in his own right.
His power was recognized by producers; he was accorded a unique "honor" by MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE when his picture was included among the dossiers that Peter Graves rejected during the famed opening sequence.
Dann's great rival was NBC's Paul Klein, one of the early champions of demographics.
The two men never met; when VARIETY's Les Brown tried to set up a meeting, Klein turned it down with these words:
"I might get to like him, and that would ruin everything."
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