There's three networks you want to be on: It's either AMC, HBO, or Showtime.
I left 'The Bob Newhart Show,' which was my decision. CBS wanted it to go on. But I could see television changing; I could see the tastes were changing.
And the consumer doesn't care. They don't watch networks, they watch TV shows.
When I was a kid growing up, there might be 10 shows on the air that had been on for ten seasons or eleven seasons. 'Gunsmoke' ran for over twenty years.
Over the years, TV has gotten so much better, especially with the advent of cable. The bar has been raised. I think HBO really set the standard with 'The Sopranos,' and then on mainstream TV, shows like 'Lost' broke amazing ground.
People forget that in the early '70s, Saturday was the most-watched night of television of the week. It was where you found 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and 'All in the Family.'
Every show on television has a downward trend because there are so many more things to watch. You can only deal with what is the benchmark of a hit series and 'Survivor' clearly remains a hit series.
The whole cable-TV original programming just changed the nature of television.
English television from the Fifties to the Nineties was the least bad in the world, and now it's just as bad as it is anywhere.
We're going to continue to go into markets that we've never been in, continue to grow the sport, continue to cultivate talent and the whole landscape of television is changing and I feel like we're ahead of the curve on that, too.
NBC programs great shows; it just doesn't have the eyeballs CBS does.
Speaking theoretically, in a completely made-up world where 'Will & Grace' is coming back to NBC for 10 episodes - just in that made-up world - it couldn't be a better time. I think more so now than even when we started! And who would have ever - I mean, it's heinous that it's because Donald Trump is the president-elect.
Reality TV has totally destroyed soap operas. They're gone. They used to be the biggest thing in the world - they're gone.
When I was growing up, there were just the three channels, so as a nation we all sat down to the same meal at the end of the day. Now there's been this explosion.
Without 'Twin Peaks,' there would have been no 'Northern Exposure,' 'Picket Fences,' 'X-Files' or 'Alias.' It started the movement of 'off-center' television.
I'm very, very proud to have been at what I feel are two of the pivotal moments in this whole new Golden Era of television - one being 'The Sopranos' with HBO and now with Netflix expanding that whole HBO concept to the world and making it more of a global thing. It's been wonderful to witness that from those two vantage points.
In the old days you could do re-runs, and people would have to watch that because there's nothing else. But with Netflix and Amazon, Hulu, Xbox, as well as premium and regular cable, it's very hard to do that.
I think Netflix is responsible for what will become how we view television.
Every so often, there is an article saying the old kind of talk show isn't possible now. In the oldest kind of talk show, you only had the choice of that or two other channels!
I think the amazing thing about 'Twin Peaks' was that it completely changed television from that point forward.
But reality television is here to stay.
You know what shows today are missing? Stars.
If you go back and look at the pilot of 'Seinfeld,' no one would have thought that show would be what it became, and television isn't given that kind of chance anymore.
There are only about three really, really good sitcoms on the air.
It's incredible that Apple is launching a streaming service with an ode to broadcast TV.
