Former NBC Executive Herbert Schlosser Passes On

Herbert Schlosser, a long time NBC executive who helped bring Johnny Carson to the network to host The Tonight Show and was pivotal in the development of Saturday Night Live, died yesterday, August 6 2021, at the age of 95.

Herbert Schlosser was born in Atlantic City on April 21 1926. He served in the United States Navy and afterwards studied public and international affairs at Princeton University. Two years following his graduation from Princeton in 1949, he graduated from Yale Law School. He began his career as a lawyer with a Wall Street law firm. Bored by that job, he took a job at Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon. Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon had many clients in the entertainment industry, including Charlie Chaplin, Salvador Dali, Eddie Fisher, Alan Jay Lerner, and Mae West, among others. His experience at Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon resulted him being hired by general counsel of California National Productions, a production subsidiary of NBC Films (itself the syndication arm of the television network NBC). He later became California National Productions' chief operating officer.

It was in 1960 that Herbert Schlosser moved to the business affairs department of NBC. It was in that position that he headed the negotiations to bring Johnny Carson from ABC over to NBC to replace Jack Paar as the host of The Tonight Show. In 1966 Mr. Schlosser was named NBC's vice president of west coast programming. In this position he was responsible for bringing more black performers to the network, including Diahann Carroll in the sitcom Julia, Flip Wilson and his variety show The Flip Wilson Show, and Redd Foxx in the sitcom Sanford and Son. He also supported Rowan & Marin's Laugh-In, often protecting the show from NBC's Broadcast Standards department and others at the network who found some of its content offensive.

In 1972 he was promoted to executive vice president at the television network. It was a year later that he became its president. In 1974 he became president of the National Broadcasting Company, the parent company of the NBC television network. In 1977 he became its chief executive. It was in 1975, when Johnny Carson said that he wanted the weekend reruns of The Tonight Show pulled, that Mr. Schlosser wrote a memo that outlined the basic idea behind Saturday Night Live (it would be televised live from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, it would be aired live, and it had to appeal to the young). 

Failing to produce a prime-time hit for NBC, Herbert Schlosser was forced out in 1978. He was then named as executive vice president of RCA, the parent company of the National Broadcasting Company. There he worked on RCA's SelectaVision videodisc project. In 1981 he was selected to head all of RCA's entertainment properties, save for NBC. In 1985 he became a senior advisor at Wertheim & Company, and the chairman of the proposed Museum of the Moving Image. 

Herbert Schlosser proved very influential in the history of American television. He was pivotal in bringing Johnny Carson to NBC for The Tonight Show. He supported the television careers of Diahann Carroll, Flip Wilson, and Redd Foxx. He championed Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and was pivotal in bringing Saturday Night Live to the air. In the history of NBC, there were only a few others who had a greater impact.