Fred Kilian; Pioneer TV Producer

Fred Kilian, a pioneer producer of Chicago-based network television shows including “Tin Pan Alley,” has died at his home in Atlanta. He was 83.

Kilian, who died Monday, created and produced shows for ABC before turning to a career in advertising. Other than the half-hour musical variety show in 1950, he worked on “The Mary Hartline Children’s Show” in 1951, “Studs’ Place” starring Studs Terkel from 1949 to 1951, and “Terry and the Pirates” in 1952, based on the comic strip of that title.

Despite his own success in television, in the mid-1960s Kilian advised his son, Fred, who later became a successful novelist: “You’ll never learn to write at a television station so go to work for a newspaper. There’s no future in newspapers, but you’ll learn something.”

After working as an advertising executive in New York City for many years, the elder Kilian also ran his own advertising agencies in Florida and most recently in Atlanta.