Arthur Smith

Arthur Smith (born November 25, 1960) is a Canadian-born American television producer who is the chairman of A. Smith & Co. and of Tinopolis America. Best known for the reality competition shows American Ninja Warrior and Hell's Kitchen, he was inducted into the Realscreen Hall of Fame in 2021, and was named Producer of the Year 2020 by Broadcasting & Cable. He previously worked for CBC Sports, Dick Clark Productions, MCA Television Group, and Fox Sports Net. He has won multiple NAACP awards for his series Unsung, Rose D'Or Awards for I Survived A Japanese Game Show, a Critics' Choice Real TV Award, a Realscreen Award and multiple Reality Television Awards. In addition, his shows have been nominated for Daytime Emmys, Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards, Producers' Guild Awards and People's Choice Awards. Smith is also the author of REACH: Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from a Lifetime in Television, his memoir that was released in 2023, which Forbes called an “immediate must-read.”

Early life Smith was born Montreal in 1960 and grew up in Hampstead, Quebec. He became interested in television during his youth, making predictions of television ratings and reading Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. At the age of sixteen he became a disc jockey in Montreal. He also acted in television commercials and two films; Pinball Summer and Hog Wild. Smith attended Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. He chose communications over theatre as his major. He graduated in 1982 and was class valedictorian. he is also the founding sponsor of the Ryerson in LA program, which grants scholarships to numerous students from Ryerson to come to Los Angeles to learn about the entertainment business. In 2024, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), unveiled the newly renovated and renamed Arthur Smith Virtual Production Studio.

Career Smith also serves as the U.S. chairman of Tinopolis.

CBC Sports During his final year at Ryerson, the CBC hired Smith as a junior producer. His first assignment was a profile of Canadian high-jumper Milt Ottey. During his short time with MCA, Smith was able to get commitments from all of the Big Four networks. He also served as executive producer on all network events including major league baseball, college football and all original programming including Fox Sports News, Hardcore Football, NFL Total Access, The Last Word with Jim Rome, and Goin' Deep, hosted by Joe Buck and Chris Meyers. In 2011, A. Smith & Co. merged with the Tinopolis Group.

A. Smith & Co. has created series in the reality, documentary, and non-fiction spaces for over two decades, In the book, called an “immediate must-read” by Forbes, Smith writes about significant moments in his career in sports and television. All of Smith’s proceeds from the book went to his REACH Foundation, which is a 501.c.3 nonprofit organization dedicated to help children in need through scholarships and other endeavors.