[4] Ancier served as executive producer and host of over 250 episodes through 1979, each featuring a full-length career retrospective interview with guests ranging from Ayn Rand to Henry Fonda to David Brinkley.
[citation needed] Other guests included presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford, George H. W. Bush, and Caspar W. Weinberger, Lucille Ball, Howard Cosell, Henry Fonda, Tom Wolfe and Pete Rose.
In 1986, Barry Diller, Jamie Kellner and Rupert Murdoch tapped the then 28-year-old Ancier to be the founding entertainment president for the new Fox Broadcasting Company,[7] where he put The Tracey Ullman Show, 21 Jump Street, Married... with Children, The Simpsons, In Living Color, America's Most Wanted, and COPS on the air.
Later on, Ancier's production company developed and produced the talk show Jane Pratt, which debuted in mid-March 1992 on WNYW-TV in New York City and was intended for nationwide launch.
Beginning in May 1999, Ancier served as president of NBC Entertainment,[7] where he helped put The West Wing and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on the air,[citation needed] while conversely being the one who cancelled the 1999 teen dramedy series Freaks and Geeks, a move over which in 2014 he wrote that it was "an awful decision that has haunted me forever".
[14] In April 2013, Ancier formed Zeus Media Partners, Inc. as a retro cable network company to provide four decade focused channels (1960s–1990s), later called The Quad.