Frederick S. Pierce

In his three-hour interview, Frederick S. Pierce talks about how he first came to work at ABC in 1956 and his initial work as an analyst in the television research department, under Julius Barnathan. He discusses several of the series that ABC had on the air at the time and how the department collected data. He describes his move up the ladder at the network from vice president to president of ABC Television in 1974. He speaks in great detail about several of the notable executives at the network, including Leonard Goldenson, Elton Rule, Fred Silverman, and Roone Arledge. He explains how he reinvented the ABC primetime schedule, shepherding such shows as Happy Days, The Love Boat, and Baretta, which brought the network to the top of the ratings. He talks about some of the notable programming on ABC in these years, which included the creation of the miniseries. Lastly, he discusses ABC's buyout by Capital Cities in the mid-1980s and his retirement from the network after a three-decade tenure. Karen Herman conducted the interview on May 5, 2006 in New York, NY.