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Sure, they call it the boob tube, but it takes some pretty big brains to make it in the TV biz. We polled Hollywood insiders to ID the TV titans they say are driving today's sharpest shows and deals http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20243951_0,00.html

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TelevisionLife

Seth Macfarlane

Seth MacFarlane

Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (; born October 26, 1973) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, comedian, and singer. MacFarlane is the creator of the TV series Family Guy (1999–present) and The Orville (2017–present), and co-creator of the TV series American Dad! (2005–present) and The Cleveland Show (2009–2013). He also wrote, directed, and starred in the films Ted (2012), its sequel Ted 2 (2015), and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014).
MacFarlane is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied animation. Recruited to Hollywood, he was an animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera for several television series, including Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory, I Am Weasel, and Larry & Steve. He made several guest appearances on TV series such as Gilmore Girls, The War at Home and FlashForward. In 2008, he created his own YouTube series titled Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. He won several awards for his work on Family Guy, including four Primetime Emmy Awards and an Annie Award. In 2009, he won the Webby Award for Film & Video Person of the Year. He occasionally speaks at universities and colleges throughout the United States, and is an active supporter of gay rights.
MacFarlane has performed as a singer at several venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London. MacFarlane has released five studio albums, in the same vein of his musical idol Frank Sinatra, beginning with Music Is Better Than Words in 2011. He has been nominated for five Grammy Awards for his musical work. 
MacFarlane hosted the 85th Academy Awards in 2013 and was also nominated for Best Original Song for the song "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted.
MacFarlane served as executive producer of the Neil deGrasse Tyson-hosted Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, an update of the 1980s Cosmos series hosted by Carl Sagan. MacFarlane was instrumental in providing funding for the series, as well as securing studio support for it from other entertainment executives.

Nancy Tellem

Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry (born Emmitt Perry Jr.; September 13, 1969) is an American actor, playwright, filmmaker, and comedian. In 2011, Forbes listed him as the highest paid man in entertainment, earning $130 million USD between May 2010 and May 2011.Perry created and performs the Madea character, a tough elderly black woman. Perry's films vary in style from orthodox filmmaking techniques to filmed productions of live stage plays. Perry is estimated to have earned around US$75 million by 2008. Many of Perry's stage-play films have been subsequently adapted as films.
Perry wrote and produced many stage plays during the 1990s and early 2000s. Perry has developed several television series, most notably Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which ran for eight seasons on TBS from June 21, 2006, to August 10, 2012. On October 2, 2012, Perry struck an exclusive multi-year partnership with Oprah Winfrey and her Oprah Winfrey Network. The partnership was largely for the sake of bringing scripted television to the OWN, based on Perry's previous success in this area. Perry has created multiple scripted series for the network, The Haves and the Have Nots being its most successful. The Haves and the Have Nots has given OWN its highest ratings to date as of 2014, with the series also referred to as "one of OWN's biggest success stories with its weekly dose of soapy fun, filled with the typical betrayals, affairs, and manipulations."Perry has additionally acted in films not directed or produced by himself, including as Admiral Barnett in Star Trek (2009), the titular character in Alex Cross (2012), Tanner Bolt in Gone Girl (2014), Baxter Stockman in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) and Colin Powell in Vice (2018).

Gary Marsh

Oprah

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born  Orpah Gail Winfrey, January 29, 1954) is an American media executive, actress, talk show host, television producer and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African American of the 20th century and North America's first black multi-billionaire, and has been ranked the greatest black philanthropist in American history. She has also been sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school. By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news. Winfrey's often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.
Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue. Through this medium, Winfrey broke 20th-century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream through television appearances. In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness and spirituality. Though she was criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas, and having an emotion-centered approach, she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Winfrey had also emerged as a political force in the 2008 presidential race, delivering about one million votes to Barack Obama in the razor close 2008 Democratic primary. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

Oprah Winfrey is an American actress and producer who is best known for her role in "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Winfrey won an Academy Award in 2012.

Lorne Michaels

Lorne Michaels,  (born Lorne David Lipowitz; November 17, 1944), is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, actor and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the Late Night series (since 1993), The Kids in the Hall (from 1989 to 1995) and The Tonight Show (since 2014).

Robert Greenblatt

Peter Roth

Peter Roth is an American television producer, currently serving as the chief executive of Warner Bros. Television.

Jason Kilar

Matthew Weiner

Matthew Hoffman Weiner () (born June 29, 1965) is an American writer, producer, director, actor and author, best known as the creator of the television series Mad Men and The Romanoffs. He is also noted for his work as a writer and executive producer on The Sopranos and for his work as a writer on Becker. He wrote, directed and produced the comedy-drama film Are You Here in 2013, marking his filmmaking debut. He published his first novel Heather, the Totality in 2017.
Weiner has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two for The Sopranos and seven for Mad Men, as well as three Golden Globe Awards for Mad Men. Mad Men won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for four consecutive years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011); The Sopranos (with Weiner as an executive producer) won the same award twice, in 2004 and 2007. In 2011, Weiner was included in Time's annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World". In November 2011, The Atlantic named him one of 21 "Brave Thinkers."

Steve Koonin

Josh Schwartz

Joshua Ian Schwartz (born August 6, 1976) is an American screenwriter and television producer. Schwartz is best known for creating and executive producing the Fox teen drama series The O.C. which ran for 4 seasons. Schwartz is also known for developing The CW's series Gossip Girl based on the book series of the same name and for co-creating NBC's action-comedy-spy series, Chuck.
At 26, he became one of the youngest people in network history to create a series and run its day-to-day production when he ran The O.C.

Rachel Maddow

Rachel Anne Maddow ( (listen), MAD-oh; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host and liberal political commentator. Maddow hosts The Rachel Maddow Show, a nightly television show on MSNBC, and serves as the cable network's special event co-anchor alongside Brian Williams. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio.
Maddow holds a doctorate in politics from Oxford University and is the first openly lesbian anchor to host a major prime-time news program in the United States. Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Damon Lindelof

Damon Laurence Lindelof (born April 24, 1973) is an American screenwriter, comic book writer, and producer. He was the co-creator and showrunner of the television series Lost (2004–10). He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan (2001–04) and wrote for Nash Bridges (2000–01). Lindelof also co-wrote the science fiction films Cowboys & Aliens (2011), Prometheus (2012), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Tomorrowland (2015). He co-created the TV series The Leftovers for HBO, adapted from the novel by Tom Perrotta.

Carlton Cuse

Arthur Carlton Cuse (born March 22, 1959) is an American screenwriter and producer, best known for the American television series Lost, for which he made the Time magazine list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. Cuse is considered a pioneer in transmedia storytelling and is also highly respected amongst his professional peers for his collaborative achievements.

Marc Cherry

Marc Cherry (born March 23, 1962) is an American television writer and producer. He is best known for creating the ABC dramedy series Desperate Housewives.

Ryan Seacrest

Ryan John Seacrest (born December 24, 1974) is an American radio personality, television host, and producer. Seacrest is known for hosting the competition show American Idol, the syndicated countdown program American Top 40, and iHeartMedia's KIIS-FM morning radio show On Air with Ryan Seacrest.In 2006 Seacrest became co-host and executive producer of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Seacrest remained a co-host and executive producer following Clark's death in 2012.He began co-hosting Live with Kelly and Ryan on a permanent basis May 1, 2017.Seacrest received Emmy Award nominations for American Idol from 2004 to 2013, and again in 2016. He won an Emmy for producing Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in 2010 and was nominated again in 2012. In 2018, Seacrest received nominations for Live with Kelly and Ryan in Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment as well as Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host.

Simon Cowell

Simon Phillip Cowell (; born 7 October 1959) is an English television music and talent show judge, businessman, A&R executive, talent manager, television producer, and entrepreneur. He has judged on the British TV talent competition series Pop Idol, The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, and the American TV talent competition shows American Idol, The X Factor and America's Got Talent. Cowell is the principal, founder and chief executive of the British entertainment company Syco.Cowell often makes blunt and controversial comments as a television show judge, including insults and wisecracks about contestants and their singing abilities. He combines activities in both the television and music industries. Cowell has produced and promoted singles and albums for various singers whom he has taken under his wing. He is popularly known for signing successful boybands such as Westlife, One Direction and CNCO.
In 2004 and 2010, Time named Cowell one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him sixth in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".

Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek Pinault (, Spanish: [ˈsalma ˈxaʝek]; born Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez; September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American film actress and producer. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa and starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley) for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991, Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in films such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Wild Wild West, and Dogma (both 1999).
Her breakthrough role was in the 2002 film Frida, as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, for which she was nominated for Best Actress for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. This movie received widespread attention and was a critical and commercial success. 
She won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children/Youth/Family Special for The Maldonado Miracle in 2004 and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series after guest-starring in the ABC television comedy-drama Ugly Betty in 2007. She also guest-starred on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock from 2009 to 2013. In 2017, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role in Beatriz at Dinner.Hayek's recent films include Grown Ups (2010), Puss in Boots (2011), Grown Ups 2 (2013), Tale of Tales (2015) and The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017).

J.J. Abrams

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams (born June 27, 1966) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and composer. He is known for his work in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. Abrams wrote and produced such films as Regarding Henry (1991), Forever Young (1992), Armageddon (1998), Cloverfield (2008), Star Trek (2009), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

J.J. Abrams is an American producer, director, writer, and actor who is best known for producing "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and "Star Trek." Abrams won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2005 for "Lost."

Glenn Close

Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and producer. "Long considered one of the great actresses of our time", according to Vanity Fair Magazine, she is the recipient of numerous awards, including three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. She has been nominated seven times for Academy Awards, holding the record for the most nominations without a win for an actress. In 2016, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Chuck Lorre

Chuck Lorre (; born Charles Michael Levine; October 18, 1952) is an American television director, writer, producer, and composer. Called the "King of Sitcoms" during the 2010s, he has created and produced sitcoms including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly, Mom, and The Kominsky Method. He also served as an executive producer of Roseanne. In 2019, he received his first Golden Globe Award for The Kominsky Method.

Christina Wayne

Lauren Zalaznick

Tyra Banks

Tyra Lynne Banks (born December 4, 1973), also known as BanX, is an American television personality, producer, businesswoman, actress, author, model, and occasional singer. Born in Inglewood, California, she began her career as a model at the age of 15, and was the first woman of African-American descent  to be featured on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, on which she appeared twice. She was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 1997 to 2005. By the early 2000s, Banks was one of the world's top-earning models.
Banks began acting on television in 1993 on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and made her film debut in Higher Learning in 1995. In 2000 she had major roles such as Eve in Disney Channel's Life-Size and Zoe in the box-office hit Coyote Ugly. She had small roles in the romantic film Love & Basketball (2000) and horror film Halloween: Resurrection (2002), and appeared in television series Gossip Girl and Glee.In 2003, Banks created and began presenting the long-running reality television series America's Next Top Model, which she executive produced and presented for the first twenty-two seasons, until the series' cancellation in October 2015. She remained executive producer for the revival of the series, and enlisted Rita Ora as host for the twenty-third cycle before reassuming the duties herself for the twenty-fourth cycle. Banks was the co-creator of True Beauty, and had her own talk show, The Tyra Banks Show, which aired on The CW for five seasons and won two Daytime Emmy awards for Outstanding Talk Show Informative. She co-hosted the talk show FABLife for two months. In 2017, Banks replaced Nick Cannon as host of America's Got Talent for its 12th season.In 2010, she published a young adult novel titled Modelland, based on her life as a model. It topped The New York Times Best Seller list in 2011. Banks is one of four African Americans and seven women to have repeatedly been ranked among the world's most influential people by Time magazine. She is also one of only seventeen models to be ranked as a Legendary Supermodel by MODELS.com.

Sure, they call it the boob tube, but it takes some pretty big brains to make it in the TV biz. We polled Hollywood insiders to ID the TV titans they say are ...