Grant Tinker

Grant Tinker, a television producer and network executive who ushered in a new era of sophisticated prime-time programming in the 1970s and 1980s, championing such well-received series as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Cheers” and “The Cosby Show,” and who turned around NBC’s flagging fortunes in the early 1980s, died Nov. 28 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.

NBC announced his death. The cause was not disclosed.

Mr. Tinker, who began his career at NBC during the dawn of the television era, later became an advertising executive who helped develop “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the early 1960s. Several years after he married the sitcom’s co-star, Mary Tyler Moore, the two founded a production company, MTM Enterprises, that launched some of television’s most honored and successful programs.

Their first effort, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” debuted on CBS in 1970 and featured the personal and professional misadventures of a single woman working in a TV newsroom. The groundbreaking series, which brought the concerns of working women to prime-time television, went on to win 29 Emmy Awards during its seven seasons.

Three of the show’s spinoffs, “Rhoda,” “Lou Grant” and “Phyllis,” became critical and commercial hits, along with other MTM sitcoms such as “The Bob Newhart Show,” about a Chicago psychologist, and “WKRP in Cincinnati,” about the staff of a Top-40 radio station.

After his success at MTM, Mr. Tinker was named chairman of NBC in 1981. NBC was in last place among the three major broadcast networks of the time and was in such bad shape that its parent company, RCA, was thinking of selling it or shuttering it altogether.

Mr. Tinker took a patient approach, renewing shows that didn’t immediately find an audience, such as Bochco’s gritty police drama “Hill Street Blues” and the hospital show “St. Elsewhere” — both produced by MTM. Despite dismal early ratings, he renewed “Cheers,” a comedy set in a Boston neighborhood bar, and “Family Ties,” about aging hippies raising children in the 1980s. All became long-running hits.

He revamped NBC’s news operation and added prime-time blockbusters to the lineup, such as “L.A. Law,” the stylish detective series “Miami Vice” and, especially, “The Cosby Show.” The Cosby sitcom was the breakout No. 1 hit and established the network’s “must-see TV” comedy block on Thursdays for decades to come.

By the end of 1985, Mr. Tinker had transformed NBC from an industry laughingstock to TV’s most-watched network. Johnny Carson and David Letterman ruled late-night television, and “Today” had become the No. 1 morning show.