Businessman

In the history of pilot reports, 'Seinfeld' has got to be one of the worst of all time.

Innovation comes to you from creators who do have a vision and a passion, and that is how we succeeded.

NBC's pilot season of 1994 is legendary in the business. In a world where failure is commonplace, we midwifed the birth of both 'Friends' and 'ER'. While 'ER' came essentially out of the blue, we'd been casting around for a 'Friends'-like show for some time at the network.

Creating things sometimes is difficult.

One way in which 'Friends' did resemble 'Seinfeld' is that it really found its audience over the summer of 1995 in reruns. That's when the main title song, 'I'll Be There for You', by the Rembrandts, exploded, too.

I loved growing up in Montclair... I think it's grown and changed and embraced change.

When you're still in the broadcast business, you're still trying to reach tens of millions. You're trying to still aim for a broader audience, and I think that's a more difficult task to spread yourself across that audience, connect with them, as opposed to a very, very small, pinpointed audience. Difficult to do.

While 'Friends' was about a 20-something population and what they were going through, they were also dealing with issues with their family.

There's no reason that there has to be a fringe network that illuminates an urban or a multiethnic experience.

When in life do you get a black and white printout that says this is what you should do? It just doesn't happen.

The writers and actors on 'Friends' were notoriously particular about what made it onto the air.

What Must-See T.V. was all about was one network, one night, for one decade. And a third of the country would come and watch Must-See T.V. And you didn't dare go to work the next day, because if you hadn't watched, you would be left out of the conversation, that water-cooler conversation.

'A Different World' didn't have the blazing success that 'Cosby' had, but it was on for seven seasons, and we got a lot of awards, and a lot of faces came out of that show and have had great careers.

'Friends' played in this territory of being funny, and then also just grabbing your heart. And not afraid of that. It was a comedic soap opera. Not being afraid to have an audience feel something, laugh and cry, was quite extraordinary and quite wonderful.

My job was to find interesting material that would give us a quality television show.

When we developed the 'Seinfeld' show, we took a bet on Jerry Seinfeld, who was not a household name. But Jerry had a voice. He was appearing on 'Late Night', on 'The Tonight Show', had some commercials out there, his voice of observational comedy, looking at the world around him, that voice was really starting to come into its own.

Audiences want and need a shared viewing experience.

I fought to make a multiple series commitment with John Wells.

Two hundred channel choices in most homes certainly gives you the world of choice. And so slicing it, dicing it, and offering someone their favorite thing - by the way, if it's not good enough, make it yourself and post it.

My last series was on A.B.C., a one-hour called 'My Generation'. Critics liked it. I was on for two weeks, and that was a tough one.