Introduction
Robert Greenblatt (born 1959/1960) is an American television executive, former Chairman of NBC Entertainment and current Chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment.
Early life and education
Greenblatt was born and raised in Rockford, Illinois, USA. He was raised Catholic and attended Boylan Catholic High School. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre management from the University of Illinois and a Master of Arts in arts administration from the University of Wisconsin's Madison School of Business. He also earned a Master of Fine Arts from the USC School of Cinema-Television's Peter Stark Producing Program.
Career
Greenblatt began his television career at the Fox Broadcasting Company, where he ran prime-time programming and developed such shows as the original Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place, The X-Files, and Party of Five.
From 1997 to 2003, Greenblatt was an award-winning producer (along with David Janollari through their production company, The Greenblatt Janollari Studio) of over a dozen series for various networks, including Six Feet Under, along with the 2005 miniseries Elvis and Gregory Nava's American Family for PBS.
From 2003 to 2010, Greenblatt was President of Entertainment for Showtime. He supervised a slate of original programming that dramatically repositioned the pay channel as a leader in the premium cable business. Under his leadership, he developed and supervised award-winning shows like Weeds, Dexter, Californication, The Tudors, Nurse Jackie, and United States of Tara.
As a theatrical producer, Greenblatt developed the musical stage adaptation of 9 to 5, which premiered on Broadway in April 2009 and closed September 2009, with the National Tour starting in September 2010. It was nominated for four Tony Awards.
Greenblatt was the chairman of NBC Entertainment. He succeeded Jeff Gaspin in January 2011 after Comcast took control of the newly renamed NBCUniversal.
On March 4, 2019, Greenblatt has been named as the chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment as part of AT&T's reorganization of WarnerMedia, oversees HBO, Cinemax, TBS, TNT and TruTV.
Politics
In August 2016, Greenblatt labeled then presidential candidate Donald Trump as "toxic" and "demented".
Personal life
Greenblatt is the first and only openly gay broadcast TV president.