Reach
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"An immediate must-read." -- Forbes
One of the most daring, creative, and influential minds in nonfiction television, Arthur Smith draws on the most exciting moments of his pioneering career as a producer to show how far you can go when you reach for your dreams.
Arthur Smith is famous for his innovation and audacity, and as the man behind some of the longest-running unscripted series in television history. His groundbreaking hit Hell's Kitchen forged the modern food competition reality genre, while his Emmy-nominated American Ninja Warrior has spawned a cultural movement, with Ninja-inspired gyms in every major American city.
In Reach, Smith shares adventures, triumphs, and hard-won lessons from his astonishing career, beginning with his unprecedented ascension from the ranks of sports production to become the youngest-ever head of CBC Sports. Never one to rest on his laurels, Smith moved from Canada to the United States to produce a wide variety of entertainment programming with his mentor, television icon Dick Clark. Years later, he spearheaded an entirely new approach to sports television at FOX Sports Net, helping to grow the fledgling business into a true industry powerhouse. In 2000, Smith made the biggest reach of his career with the launch of A. Smith & Co. Productions, which has produced over two hundred television shows on more than fifty networks. Across genres, formats, and platforms, Smith and his A. Smith & Co. team have earned a reputation for original, emotional, buzz-worthy, and deeply personal storytelling.
In these pages, Smith takes us behind-the-scenes of dozens of pivotal moments in sports and television history, ranging from the high-intensity control room at the Olympics to the development of The Titan Games with Dwayne ("The Rock") Johnson. We learn about a show that never was with Donald Trump, as well as a super-far-fetched idea that became the bizarro-classic genre-buster I Survived a Japanese Game Show. Through winning anecdotes involving a disparate cast of famous characters, including Marlon Brando, Gordon Ramsay, Magic Johnson, Little Richard, Wayne Gretzky, Simon Cowell, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, Smith illustrates just how far you can go when you work hard, take risks, and reach for your dreams.
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Arthur Smith, the chairman of A. Smith & Co. Productions, is a pioneering veteran of nonfiction television, known for creating and producing some of the longest-running unscripted series in history, including Hell's Kitchen and American Ninja Warrior. Smith was honored as one of Variety's "Titans of Unscripted TV" in 2022, inducted into the Realscreen Awards Hall of Fame in 2021, awarded Broadcasting & Cable's "Producer of the Year" in 2020, has been nominated for several Emmy Awards, and has received dozens of industry honors and awards. Smith embarked on his career in television as a 22-year-old wunderkind, talking his way into sports production at CBC in his native Canada. He quickly distinguished himself as a rising star at the network, where he produced three Olympic Games among countless other high-profile events. At the age of 28, Smith was named the youngest-ever head of CBC Sports. His successful run at the network ended when American broadcasting icon Dick Clark lured him to Hollywood to develop and produce a wide variety of entertainment programming. Then as the head of programming and production at FOX Sports Net, Smith played an instrumental role in the launch and growth of this massive entity, before the biggest reach of his life--the creation of his eponymous production company that has since thrived for more than twenty years and counting. Smith's proceeds from this book support the REACH Foundation.