Grant Tinker’s New Television Game Plan

As usual, Grant Tinker doesn’t mince words.

“I’m no longer pursuing independent production of television programs,” he says.

It’s a bit startling, and somewhat disconcerting, to hear the history-making television executive say the words.

But Tinker, whose company turned out “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Lou Grant” and “Hill Street Blues”--and who later guided NBC to unprecedented success as chairman--has made a simple business decision.

Yes, he’ll stay in TV if “an idea or two” that he’s kicking around pans out. And he’s working on a book for Simon & Schuster about his years in broadcasting, aided by former NBC spokesman Bud Rukeyser.

But the strangling economics afflicting TV has persuaded him to “close the door” on the part of the business in which he has spent much of his life.

In his post-NBC years, he turned out some worthy dramatic series such as “WIOU” and “TV 101,” which should have been given more time to catch on--and some flops, including a television version of USA Today.

But that’s all part of the game. It’s the new rules that he doesn’t like.

Acknowledging that a few independent producers such as the team of Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner (“The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne”) have beaten the system of using networks and studios as a protective umbrella, he says they are rare exceptions.

“The economics of the business no longer allow you to be in business as I was (as head of MTM Enterprises) and Norman Lear was and Lorimar was, where you’re in effect living off your own proceeds,” says Tinker.

“You were self-supporting on the basis of the projects that you sold and that succeeded. You can’t do that anymore. In fact, the more you succeed today with programming, the worse shape you’re in because of the accumulating deficits (the out-of-pocket money producers put up in hopes of recouping it in reruns).

“So unless you have the deep pockets and the interacting divisions and international sales arms of the big studios, you really can’t be in the independent production business.

“I don’t choose to crawl in under the umbrella, though I’ve had a couple of kind opportunities to do so with a larger studio. To me, that isn’t being independent. I really did treasure the MTM independence, and that’s the only way I would want to be in it.”

Describing independents as “the first casualties” of TV’s new economics, Tinker adds: “The next may be that the major studios will decide that in spite of their size, they also can’t afford to do business the way they’ve done it with the traditional networks.

“The networks--and I’m not speaking of Fox here--are in my opinion not just at the beginning of the end, they’re sort of in the middle of the end, closer to the demise of these networks as we have known them than people may realize.

“It’s only a matter of time before one network will perhaps not disappear but reconfigure into something else. Or one of them will pull so far out in front, as we at NBC did in the ‘80s, that that one will be in great shape and the other two will languish even more than they are now.”

There’s nothing wrong, says Tinker, with seeking an umbrella “if you want to. You can make a deal where you have a lot of creative independence, but at some point you’ve got to go to somebody and say, ‘May I?’--because everything about the business involves investment.

“We’re all culpable (for the financial crisis) because the production community, while network fortunes went backward, failed forever to get our arms around the cost--and in fact almost increased the pace of spending by throwing incredible dollars at the best creative people.”

Says Tinker of his future in TV: “I’m not going to be in the business of simply producing TV programs for networks because that, if done independently, is dead. I’m not a writer, director, even a producer. I’m an executive and hopefully a manager, and so if I don’t have something to manage--if I’m put in a ‘May I?’ situation--it’s not really the same.”

VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Caught Richard Nixon on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and couldn’t help remembering the 1989 TV Guide article in which the former President wrote: “Of all the institutions arrayed with and against a President, none controls his fate more than television.” For this viewer, at least, Nixon remains TV’s most fascinating and complex personality.

COMER: Haven’t changed my mind one whit--CNN sportscaster Hannah Storm is big-time material.

ROSE IN BLOOM: Saw Charlie Rose chatting with playwrights in his new talk-show gig on cable’s Learning Channel, and he’s back in the arena where he belongs. CBS never should have let the host of its now-doomed “Nightwatch” series get away.

WEATHER OR NOT: Now, let’s see--weather guy Fritz Coleman, who just re-upped with KNBC Channel 4 in a reportedly good deal, apparently thought he was worth as much as the station’s sports guy, Fred Roggin. Fill in your own punch line.

NIGHT AND DEY: Did you see that smooch that law firm boss Leland McKenzie (Richard Dysart) planted smack on the lips of Grace Van Owen (Susan Dey) on last week’s “L.A. Law”? It was an old-school kiss, ya know? Very chaste. But the surprised Van Owen let her older, gentlemanly boss know that she probably sent out the wrong signal to him. All very polite. I think they’re made for each other.

RUNAWAY: NBC’s overnight news show, “Nightside,” looks like a joke next to its sleek new competitor, “ABC World Now.”

CLOSE CALL: The off-camera staffer who said “No. Stop” just as CNN was about to broadcast a hoax report that President Bush had died at that Japanese banquet should get a three-week vacation in Paris from management, all expenses paid.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING: David Letterman is interviewed on Barbara Walters’ Jan. 29 ABC special.

BEING THERE: “Nothing ever makes sense first thing in the morning.”--Jack Dane (Yale Summers) in “Daktari.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .