When "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" ended its run, that series' co-creators and producers, James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, had a commitment to create a new show starring Ed Asner. They decided that it was easier to retain the popular Lou Grant character and make it a spinoff series. "Mary Tyler Moore" had already established that the character had a previous newspaper career. Brooks and Burns' decision to make the spinoff series a one-hour realistic drama instead of another situation comedy was influenced by the 1976 film "All the President's Men", and how that movie depicted the operation of a major newspaper.