Jeff Zucker says NBC Entertainment and studio co-chairman Ben Silverman will sign a new deal to stay at the company. Zucker told Broadcasting & Cable the non-news — hey, this has been expected for months now since Zucker can’t admit he erred in hiring Silverman in the first place — as part of a candid Q&A that runs in the December 15 issue. I never thought General Electric, a company that used to prize only excellence, would now reward failure. Then again, Zucker keeps managing for margins, not programming for ratings. And now NBC stands for Nothing But Crap.
Zucker: Ben Silverman Staying At NBC
By NIKKI FINKE | Friday December 12, 2008 @ 11:59am PSTTags: Networks
This article was printed from http://www.deadline.com/2008/12/zucker-says-ben-silverman-staying-at-nbc/
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Except for QUALITY shows like Chuck, The Office and 30 Rock.
Hollywood has a certain nack for letting people fall up.
The news that every NBC station longs to hear. More of the same fantastic programming to help our late local news flourish against our CBS, FOX, and ABC competitors.
Kudos to the peacock.
Leno rocks!
And the Nominees for the 2008 Fail Upward Award are:
- Ben Silverman for running a network into dead last, being a complete creep with no business sense or television taste and refusing to spend any time doing any work…
- Ben Silverman for being as indecisive about his shows and hiring of execs as he is about his preference for men or women and blow or weed…
- Ben Silverman for making sure anyone and everyone Aunderneath him takes the fall for his pathetic attempts to program a network while making sure this all translates into his own personal gain
Note: Toby Emmerich wasn’t nominated since he can’t actually make any decisions including wiping his ass without telling Warner Brothers.
Silverman is a thousand times more talented than this site or any news media outlet is giving him credit for. When he was on the other side of the table as a producer, there was no one better at teeing up a room before a pitch. As a writer, you just cannot ask for a better partner than him. NBC was a sinking ship when he first came in (kind of like blaming Obama in six months for the Bush administrations failures). Zucker is wise to keep Ben on board and not succumb to industry and media pressure. Ben is a guy who has always walked between the raindrops and if you want any kind of assurances in this business, having a guy like him to help sell you or your company is a win in the long haul. I suggest you people give this wine a bit more time before you judge it.
GE is clinging to Zucker and Silverman like the GOP is clinging to Sarah Palin.
I wouldn’t have a problem with either of them if they would come correct and admit their failures instead of spinning them like some sort of “grand vision.”
Silverman has been hampered by the Writer’s Strike, true, but I get the impression that there isn’t a lot in the pipeline either. That’s on him.
Why NBC doesn’t pick off some development talent from ABC, CBS or Time/Warner is beyond me.
Silverman is the best salesman in the TV biz. Not a surprise he’s been able to sell himself so well.
NBC= no body cheaper
I have to agree with “Quality” that NBC does have a handful of good shows. To Chuck, The Office, and 30 Rock, I’d add Heroes (most of the time) and Life. Of course, with the exception of The Office, Silverman has no connection to these shows and wasn’t around when they were greenlit. Nevertheless, by this time next year, I’d expect that 2 or 3 of these will be canceled and replaced with updated versions of Remington Steele or Alf. Better yet, a new reality show: Who Wants to Program NBC?
Ferguson was right, he is to NBC what Mugabe is to Zimbabwe. You just can’t get rid of him.
Now I will give Silverman props for being a good salesman. He pitched all those show from Europe and Latin America to the USA with Reveille, he was able to pitch himself into the NBC gig, but he just not cut out for the executive suite. Not everybody is.
Now there are three possible reasons why Zucker’s keeping him.
1. He can’t admit that he made a mistake.
2. Zucker’s keeping him to make sure that no one who can potentially replace Zucker himself gets any seniority at NBC.
3. Silverman has incriminating and/or embarrassing pictures of Zucker the Board of Directors of GE.
It an embarrassment…enough said
Chuck, The Office and 30 Rock all suck.
How is it that so many of us readers… people without the MBAs or fancy careers… even a nobody like me in Iowa… can look at the past several NBC schedules and see so many improvements that could have been made? Ditto with ABC lately; TV is always a risk but their are smart concepts such as counterprogramming and using lead-ins that help. It doesn’t take a rocket genius to figure out that family-friendly shows like Eli Stone go earlier in the night, that shows like Medium are consistent enough to be treated better, and that ABC Wednesdays should not have been returned in tact after months off the air save a few Private Practice repeats.
I think NBC’s current problems go back to their hastily re-shuffled schedule after ABC moved Grey’s to Thursdays (back when that net was smarter)… whose bright ideas was it to have the Biggest Loser on the same night as two new comedies and one new drama? Perhaps they go back even further, when they broke up the Thursday comedy block.
Silverman–the Warren Littlefield for a new generation.
Dumb and Dumber ride again. Time to dump whatever GE stock is left.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!
You are right they’ve admitted pure defeat with this
renewal. It’s better to save their own asses, but let NBC fail. how incredibly tragic.
Now I get it. All this time I was told the point of my employ was to benefit the company…make them money…make them look good. Obviously, that was all backwards thinking. Had I only screwed around, showed up once in a blue moon and used the words ‘drugs’ and ‘recreational’ in the same sentence, I’d have had my contract renewed! If only someone had tipped me off.
Chuck? Quality? Okay, I get it – you’re being sarcastic, right? (I hope so anyway.)
NBC is jockeying for fifth place now, and GE’s Immelt seems to be just fine with that. Otherwise, Zucker and Silverman would have been canned long ago. CBS’ Moonves and ABC’s Iger must be laughing their heads off, or else they have candid photos of Zucker, Silverman and Immelt. There is just no other explanation.
Quality, let’s see how many of those shows are around next season. I say one.
Well, this is a blow to quality television but it’s a victory for quality Deadline Hollywood Daily stories! Embrace the horror!
I guess “failure” is the new “success.”
I mean this is almost a joke at this point. It’s like you always had to ask yourself about the original Office, “who would ever hire David Brent?”
this is crazy….how has this guy been able to fail upwards?
“Except for QUALITY shows like Chuck, The Office and 30 Rock.”
But, wouldn’t those shows be the exceptions that PROVE the rule?
GE is a savvy entertainemnt company.
Time to short their stock.