Everybody knows its name

A brief look at the man and the moment that created the concept of "Must See TV", There at the creation: Fred Silverman.

It was a May day in 1981 when Fred Silverman left his office in New York's Rockefeller Center. He would not return, not that day or ever again. Silverman had been president and CEO of NBC for three years. He left that day very much a failure, and he would have been hard-pressed to find many who disagreed.

NBC was in the tank, the No. 3 network behind ABC and CBS, and the board of RCA, which then owned the network, was scouting for his replacement. Silverman, the man Time magazine just three years earlier had touted on its cover as "TV's Master Showman," was jumping before he got pushed.

But what Silverman left behind was one of modern television's great legacies, what would become known as Must See TV, the programming dynasty that was NBC's Thursday night.

[thanks to TV Squad]

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