NBC Recasts Its Office
New entertainment bosses plan to climb out of fourth place
Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson, The Office
After bringing
The Office,
Ugly Betty and
The Biggest Loser to prime time as a hot producer,
Ben Silverman is heading to the network corporate suite. He's been named cochairman of NBC's entertainment division and studio, replacing fired entertainment president Kevin Reilly. He'll have network veteran Marc Graboff (the other cochairman) guiding him on the business side. What's their plan to steer NBC out of another fourth-place finish in the ratings? The Biz asked them.
TVGuide.com: You had a successful production company. Why was this the right time for you to make this move?
Ben Silverman: It's always been something I've wanted to do. We can inherit the opportunity of the exploding media. Between PDAs, cell phones, TV screens in the elevator and taxicabs, there are more touch points for the consumer than there have ever been.
Marc Graboff: I think Ben is the right person at the right time at the right place. I think his energy, his enthusiasm and his point of view are exactly what our company needs right now. I always enjoyed him as somebody on the other side of the table. And I love working with him now; just in the last week I've been spending time with him. It's fun. He's really smart.
TVGuide.com: What's going to be the hardest part of the transition for Ben going from seller to buyer?
Graboff: He's going to have a learning curve of what it's like to be programming a network. As a seller, if you sell a show, you sell a show. If you don't, you don't. As a buyer on the network, you've got 22 hours a week to fill, 52 weeks a year. You have to have to something on the shelf. You can't just say, "OK, I didn't get that made." You've got to make something. He's going to have to get the whole game of moving the puzzle pieces around. It's really become a 3-D game in scheduling.... As far as just pure executive skills, there is going be a little bit [of an adjustment] working in a corporate environment. I'm going to be shielding him a lot from that. We want to extract the best out of Ben. We don't want to turn him into a suit.
TVGuide.com: Ben, what makes you different than the other people who've headed network entertainment divisions in recent years?
Silverman: I think all of the network presidents are impressive, creative and bright. What's unique is I'm an entrepreneur. I am a risk taker. I'm a guy who, against everyone's advice, went off to London in 1995 as a 25-year-old and had to create an opportunity. Everyone thought I was riding a one-way plane ticket out of show business. (Instead, Silverman brought Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Big Brother to the U.S.) When I left William Morris, where I was offered a massive senior position, I jumped off the cliff and tried to make the transition from agent to independent producer at a time when the independent was going to die and no agent had successfully made that leap. Everyone told me not to do that. I like a challenge, but I love this broad platform to influence popular culture. There's nothing more fun to me than being on an airplane and looking up to see The Office playing on a big screen and nine different people watching different episodes on their iPods, and hearing them laugh and seeing that impact. That's joyful to me.
TVGuide.com: Across the NBC schedule there are a lot of shows critics and audiences like. Why hasn't anything been able to get to the next level, where it really moves the needle in the ratings?
Graboff: Other than Heroes? I think it's a problem of circulation. In the fall when we have football on Sundays, we have much better circulation across our schedule. In the first and second quarters of the year, we don't have that circulation. In addition to shows we have that are critically acclaimed but low-rated, we've got some old shows that don't have the legs they used to have. It's a combination of those things.
TVGuide.com: But why do you think this has happened? You get shows sampled and get people to talk about them. What do you think is missing?
Graboff: More than a couple of broad, commercial-appeal, scripted shows and then a big-tent reality show. We don't have an American Idol. We don't have a Dancing with the Stars. We need that big-tent reality show. That's the turbocharger of a schedule. ABC has it. Fox has it. And we don't have it. That's a top priority for us, and Ben is the perfect guy to find that.
TVGuide.com: Are you going to reconsider anything on the fall schedule?
Graboff: No. We've been talking about it. We feel very comfortable with the schedule. We're looking at fast-tracking some mid-season development. We're looking to find that mid-season reality show that can rest Deal or No Deal a little bit. We're looking at a number of things, but in terms of the schedule, you're not going to see any wholesale changes.
TVGuide.com: Ben, what's your favorite NBC show that you didn't have anything to do with?
Silverman: I love Heroes.
TVGuide.com: Madison Avenue is happy about your arrival because you've been aggressive in integrating products into your shows in an entertaining way. Will you be able to convince other show creators that this is a good thing?
Silverman: The business is changing. If our creative partners want to execute programming at the level we've been funding it, we're going to have to bring advertisers into the fold. I understand that, and I'm looking at NBC and NBC Universal to provide solutions to the advertisers. I'm looking for the creative answers to their needs. And I'm going to look to the creative community to help me execute that. If you're making broadcast television, you better get the joke: We get financed by advertising.
