Lin Bolen Dead at 76

Lin Bolen, the first female VP of programming at a TV network and an influential force in daytime television fare, has died. She passed away on January 19 in a hospital in the San Fernando Valley, according to friend and former game-show host Jim MacKrell. She was 76.

Bolen worked for NBC in the 1970s and was responsible for commissioning the long-running game show Wheel of Fortune. She also is credited with bringing long-form narrative to soap operas, expanding them to hour-long formats.

It was long rumored that the ruthless Faye Dunaway character of Diana Christiansen in the 1976 satirical film Network was based on Bolen, something Bolen denied.

She was appointed VP of daytime programming at NBC in 1972, rising to become the VP of programming in Sept. 1975. NBC thrived under her leadership, becoming the No. 1 network in ratings.

She launched NBC soap opera How to Survive a Marriage in 1974, and extended Another World and Days of our Lives to an hour from 30 minutes in 1975 to allow for more complex plots.

FLASHBACK: NBC-TV Trying an Hour-Long Daytime; Proliferation Is Noted (1974)

NBC-TV Trying an Hour-Long Daytime; Proliferation Is Noted

by Les Brown
New York Times
October 19, 1974

When daytime soap operas moved from radio to television in the early nineteen-fifties, they retained the accustomed 15-minute format. In 1956, the networks found 30 minutes to be more suitable. Now, NBC-TV is preparing to expand one of its long-running daytime serials, Another World, to a full hour every day, beginning next Jan. 6.

If the innovation proves successful, NBC program executives expect that other serials will adopt the 60-minute format and that it will become standard for daytime melodrama. NBC also plans to experiment with a one-hour episode of its other soap operas, Days of our Lives and The Doctors.