Robert Greenblatt joined NBCUniversal in January 2011 as Chairman, NBC Entertainment and reports to NBCU Chief Executive Officer Steve Burke. In this role, Greenblatt is responsible for all aspects of primetime, late night and scripted daytime programming for the network, including business affairs, marketing, communications, scheduling, West Coast research and digital operations.
Under Greenblatt’s leadership, NBC has risen to the top of the television industry after a decade in last place, winning the 52-week season for the last five consecutive years in primetime’s key demographic of adults 18-49 and poised to add its first total-viewer crown in 16 years when final 2017-18 results are tallied. NBC has won six consecutive fourth quarters and eight consecutive summers in adults 18-49 and the network’s powerful primetime lineup has been reinforced in recent seasons by such popular and critically acclaimed additions as “This Is Us,” the revival of “Will & Grace,” “World of Dance” “The Good Place” and “Ellen’s Game of Games.
In addition, Greenblatt oversees Universal Television and Universal Television Alternative Studios, which combined currently produce nearly 40 scripted series as well as late-night and reality programs for a variety of networks and digital platforms. In addition to shows for NBC primetime, such as the successful “Chicago” franchise, the critically acclaimed comedies “Superstore” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and all of NBC’s hit late-night lineup, Universal Television also produces the prestigious non-NBC comedies: the the Emmy-winning “Master of None” and the Emmy-nominated “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for Netflix. Off-network dramas also include “The Bold Type” on Freeform and the upcoming “Magnum P.I.” for CBS.
A Golden Globe Award-winning television producer (“Six Feet Under”) and Tony Award-winning Broadway producer (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”), Greenblatt has led NBC to be at the forefront of live television events. He broke in 2013 with the broadcast of NBC’s musical “The Sound of Music Live!,” which attracted 21 million viewers and has become a yearly tradition that is now being replicated by other networks. NBC presented “The Wiz Live!” in 2015 and “Hairspray Live!” in 2016, and has on tap for 2018 “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert” starring John Legend and a live production of Aaron Sorkin’s play “A Few Good Men.”
Greenblatt’s relationship with Dolly Parton led to him producing the Tony-nominated Broadway hit “9 to 5: The Musical” with a score by Parton, as well as NBC’s 2015 broadcast of her telefilm “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors.” The TV movie garnered an audience of 16 million, making it the most-watched film on broadcast or cable in nearly seven years, and led to the sequel “Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love,” which debuted in 2016.
Prior to NBC, Greenblatt was President of Entertainment for Showtime Networks, Inc., where he supervised a slate of original programming that dramatically altered the Showtime brand and re-positioned the company as a leader in premium cable television. Over his seven-year tenure, the audience subscription base increased 52% – to a then-record high of 19 million subscribers in 2010 – and profitability more than doubled.
At Showtime, he was responsible for such hits as “Weeds,” “Dexter,” “Shameless,” “The Borgias,” “Episodes,” “Nurse Jackie,” “The Tudors,” “Californication,” “United States of Tara,” “The Big C,” “This American Life” and “Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union,” among others. These shows and their actors were honored with multiple Golden Globe, Emmy, AFI, SAG, DGA, PGA, WGA and Peabody Awards; and in 2010 alone, they collectively garnered a record-breaking number of both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the network.
Prior to Showtime, Greenblatt was an award-winning producer of over a dozen series on various networks. The highlight of those was “Six Feet Under,” for which he was awarded the 2002 Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series. It also garnered dozens of Emmy nominations, including four for Outstanding Drama Series, and it won the 2003 Producers Guild Award, three GLAAD Media Awards and the George Foster Peabody Award. He also produced two Emmy-nominated miniseries: “Elvis” for CBS (starring Golden Globe winner Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Gregory Nava’s “American Family” for PBS.
Greenblatt began his television career at the Fox Broadcasting Company where he ran primetime programming from 1992-97 and developed such memorable shows as the original “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place,” “The X-Files,” “Party of Five,” “Ally McBeal” and “King of the Hill,” in addition to the pilots for “The Sopranos” and “Dawson’s Creek.”
In 2011, he received the Stephen F. Kolzak Award from GLAAD, and in 2016 Greenblatt was presented with The Actors Fund Medal of Honor. Greenblatt is a member of the Broadway League of Theatrical Producers, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Producers Guild of America.
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