There were no competitions on television. The first skating competition I ever remember seeing on television was the 1968 Olympics when Peggy Fleming won.
The fact is that daytime television is less valued than nighttime, and it's partly because of the product that we produce. We do a one-hour show in 12 hours. Nighttime produces a one-hour show in seven to nine days.
It's funny, like 15 years ago when I was a kid doing all the John Hughes movies, I remember Bruce Willis was the only guy who was transitioning from television into film.
With the marketing pressures driving the book world today, it's much easier to get the author of a memoir on a television show than a serious novelist.
At that time I was making the largest salary known on television and I didn't want to see it die because those were the years paying off when I wasn't making anything.
The writers led by Mike Scully are fantastic. And they're creating original stories that not only don't repeat what we've already done, they also don't repeat anything I've seen on television.
And I grew up watching all the British ones so when you hear that from an early age, it makes it much easier than you guys who don't grow up with Australian television or British television.
Roger King is, without a doubt, the greatest salesman in the history of anything. And I don't ever limit him just to television. He could sell you anything.
The thing that cracks me up is how these reality characters start out thrilled and excited just to be on television, and how they move to thinking they are as big as the Friends.
I got into television because I hated it so. I thought, there's some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen.
