Thomas B. McGrath (born 1956, married) though little known outside Hollywood, has been an important, behind-the-scenes player in reshaping modern media throughout his entertainment career.

McGrath grew up in Washington, DC and received his A.B. at 19 from Harvard and earned his M.B.A. there as well. At Harvard he was music director of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and conductor of both the Harvard Marching Band and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

McGrath began his career as a musician, performing in the orchestra at the Wolf Trap Center outside Washington, DC, while in college. After college he was a Broadway press agent at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, work that included the original Broadway production of Annie and the first national tour of A Chorus Line. He also handled the U.S. Bicentennial visits of the La Scala opera, Berlin Opera, Royal Ballet, Cuba National Ballet, Bolshoi Opera and Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet. These visits included the US debut of Jose Carreras and the American debut of the recently defected, Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshinikov.

While in Business school, McGrath wrote a thesis on future potential of the home videocassette for film distribution which brought him to the attention of Columbia Picture's then CEO, Fay Vincent (later the commissioner of Major League Baseball). McGrath was then hired by Columbia Pictures in 1980 to start a home video distribution company as well as set up a licensing regime for the emerging pay TV channels such as HBO and Showtime, at a time when few had even heard of a videocassette. While at Columbia, McGrath wrote an econometric paper on movie theaters and video competition that contributed to the US Justice Department lifting a 30-year old "Paramount Consent Decree" which had prohibited film companies from owning movie theaters -- after which Columbia became the first motion picture studio since 1954 to acquire a chain of movie theaters. McGrath also lead the formation of TriStar Pictures, a partnership of Columbia, HBO and CBS—the first new movie studio in fifty years—which survives to this day as part of Sony Entertainment. With Warner Brothers, Fox, Goldcrest Films and Thorn/EMI, McGrath formed Premiere International, Europe's first Pay TV service. McGrath also led the acquisition sof Belwin-Mills Music by Columbia, as well as Embassy Television (All in the Family, among many other shows) and Merv Griffin productions (Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy).

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After Columbia, McGrath started up Act III Communications in partnership with famed TV writer Norman Lear, Bert Ellis, Scott Wallace and Paul Schaeffer. Act III was the first non-industry player to acquire movie theaters in a move that subsequently led to virtually all the major movie theater chains being acquired by financial players. Act III also owned TV stations (eventually becoming the largest Fox Network affiliate when that network was starting up), trade magazines such as Channels and produced a handful of movies.

McGrath moved on in 1990 to become President of Time Warner International Broadcasting, where he worked with the legendary Steve Ross and HBO's Jeff Bewkes to take advantage of the de-regulation of media internationally by launching radio and TV channels such as Classic FM in the UK, Channel Five (UK), VIVA-TV (Germany), the first major competitor to MTV and the only one to beat them in local ratings, N-TV, a German language 24-hour news network in partnership with CNN,VOX (TV) a national German TV network with Bertelsmann, and others.

After Time Warner International, McGrath became chief operating officer of the Viacom Entertainment Group following Viacom's acquisition of Paramount Pictures in 1994. At Viacom McGrath headed up Famous Players Theaters which eventually obtained a 50% share of the Canadian market, and United Cinemas International which lead the effort to modernize international movie theaters by building almost 1,000 movie theater screens in 13 countries including Brazil, China, Italy, Japan, Germany and others. McGrath acted as chairman of Famous Music, Paramount's music publishing subsidiary, doubling net publisher's share; also heading up licensing and merchandising and corporate finance.

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McGrath also lead up the build-up of the Paramount TV station group from 14 local independents to 27 stations for the launch of the UPN network, America's fifth major broadcast network. In new technology, Tom McGrath proposed the formation of Digital Cinema Initiatives, an all-movie studio effort to define standards for digital cinema projection, served on the committee for advanced DVD standards, formed the studio joint venture "Movielink" to offer internet downloading of major feature films, and lead industry efforts to both combat internet film piracy and create viable online alternatives.

While at Paramount, McGrath formalized and rationalized the use of off-balance sheet film financing, making it an indispensible tool of modern film making, including over $4bn in German Tax partnerships, $2bn in UK sale-leasebacks and the Melrose Film Partners "slate" financing. Other accoplishments included tha cquisition and mergers of VIacom Television, Spelling TV and Rysher Entertainment (more than doubling Paramount's TV library)and heading up Paramount's theme park division, then the fifth largest theme park operator in North America.

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Production credits for McGrath (principally as an executive) include the films Fried Green Tomatoes, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride and the first-class theatrical productions of Arsenic and Old Lace, Vacanza Romana (Roman Holiday), Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Footloose,Saturday Night Fever and the stage production of Happy Days with Gary Marshall.

McGrath is currently Senior Managing Director of Crossroads Media, a private equity backed acquisition vehicle. Most recently Crossroads acquired a controlling interest in Bug Music which manages the catalogs of Johnnie Cash, Willie Dixon, Annie Roboff, Harry Ruby, Stevie Ray Vaughn and others. McGrath also serves on the boards of V-Media, Cineworld Cinemas UK, Universal Studios Orlandoand Classic Media TV.

German Music Video Channel

Classical Radio

Channel 5 UK