John Pike

In 1971, John Pike began his career as a disc jockey and later moved into TV news, holding various positions from anchorman to programming executive at a series of stations in Florida, Massachusetts and Ohio. He made the move to the networks in 1980 when he was named vice president of program development for the NBC TV Stations Division, with responsibilities for sports and children's programming as well as late-night scheduling. The following year, Pike began a 13-year tenure at Paramount, during which developed and produced several series shot overseas (e.g., "E.A.R.T.H. Force," "MacGyver" and "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"). When Viacom acquired Paramount in 1993, Pike resigned in the fall. Within a year, he had been tapped as senior vice-president, late-night and non-network programming. But, his tenure was marred by an article that appeared in DETAILS, in which he allegedly made racist remarks. Pike has maintained that his comments were distorted and taken out of context and some 100 supporters ranging from Brandon Tartikoff to Bob Newhart showed their support. Nevertheless, the resulting controversy led Pike to resign from CBS. He eventually formed John Pike Productions which landed a production deal with MGM. He was later named senior vice president business development at MGM Worldwide Television. Among the projects he was overseeing was a syndicated talk show hosted by Mesach Taylor and a small screen remake of "Elmer Gantry."