His assignment of reviving NBC’s long-troubled fortunes in prime time has proved heavier lifting than Mr. Silverman anticipated, thanks to a combination of external factors — like a writers’ strike and a battered economy — and internal factors, including some gossip-stoking incidents in his personal life and a few comments about others that he now acknowledges were ill-advised.
And as always, there is the issue of ratings.
[...]
Some detractors, rooting for his exit, have suggested that he and NBC can’t wait to part company. But Mr. Silverman, who is 38, says he is staying put. “I am a happy worker at NBC,” hesaid in a recent interview in Manhattan. “I plan to stay at NBC as part of the NBC family. I’m there. I’m committed.”
Jeff Zucker, Mr. Silverman’s boss and the chief executive of NBC Universal, says he continues to value Mr. Silverman’s work. “Ben has a skill set that is incredibly appropriate for these times,” he said. “If we weren’t supportive of Ben, he wouldn’t be here.”
Still, the fact that there has been no formal deal announced to renew Mr. Silverman’s contract will probably set off speculation among Mr. Silverman’s critics that Mr. Zucker does not want to make a public endorsement of him.
Surely the biggest thing working against Silverman at this point is his staggering incompetence? How does that not merit mentioning?
Who’s dumber, Ben Silverman or Dawn Ostroff? hehe.
I think Ben Silverman gets a really bad rap. It’s not an easy job, and he didn’t have much to work with.
johnthemon, he may have come in when NBC was already quickly declining, but under his watch it has declined to embarrassing levels. And he was in charge of decisions like not making pilots last year and just making decisions off of scripts.
They should replace him with his sister, Sarah Silverman. She’s funny! Amiright?
Silverman isn’t great at his job, but Zucker is the real impediment at NBC. It looks to me like Zucker is shifting blame towards Silverman the way he did with Kevin Reilly.
I agree, hit piece should be on Zucker.
Zucker is a case study in failing upward.
hopefully he can fail forward and stop being a jerk.
I agree with the “kinda” in Robert’s post title. The NYT article itself isn’t nearly as hard on Silverman as the title in the NYT portends it to be.
By all publicly available measures the guy has been a complete failure at NBC. However, there may be plenty of non-public areas where he might not be doing as badly. We have no way of knowing.
I actually liked Silverman when he was working on The Office… we didn’t hear from him then.
I am not impressed with Mr Silverman or Mr Zucker. If NBC is happy with them and their results, they cannot complain about their rankings in the ratings.
Ben can stay. He has patience and seems to actually enjoy television. Mother Zucker can go. He never really had patience and never gave me any indication that he even watches television — never mind enjoys it. It was all just bean-counting and bending over backwards to affiliates for him. Plus, I’m pretty sure Ben never did anything as stupid as cancel a hit show — one that turned on the lights for an entire night for the peacock — just because he didn’t personally like it. Finally, it’s no great secret that nobody save for Immelt thinks all that highly of Sucker to begin with.
Besides, I’m sure most of the blame for NBC’s perfect failure rate this past season has already been passed off to the 3 development chiefs they pushed out the door, anyway.
Riff, what hit show did NBC cancel? Just curious.
Dawn should be the one to get fired. That devil is just promoting crap shows like 90210 ou GG. I hope Smallville and Supernatural will survive next year against this stupid female demos bitch.
There is nothing mysterious about Silverman and why he’s a complete POS. He is exempt from NBCU corporate drug testing for a reason.
Wow. mmm, mel. No sisters, girl cousins, girlfriends who watch(ed) TV? We all can kvetch, but … I may be getting to be a dirty old man, but I liked how unapologetically T.V. dirty – dirty as in nasty, freaky, filthy – the Beverly Hills remake was, the one time I saw it. Best thing in that vein since whatever show MTV got heat for, the one that was practically a primer course in every way to have sex without having sex for ( uh, yeah )18 year old college kids. Man, even a sensitive 200nine – ties man, is not made for Gilmore Girls alone. Of course, moms must have overheard just the dialogue alone on that show and blown a gasket. Ergo, end of remake. While the country gets wilder, TV for twenty-somethings gets more bland. It turns out twelve year olds watch what twenty-year olds watch – which is shocking, absolutely shocking. ( Since the Quantcast (?) indicates most frequent visitors here are 18-35 and childless, a few people must be smirking right along with childless me. Oh, to be cut off root and branch! The pain, the pain!
If Ben Silverman and Dawn Ostroff had a kid together would it be fair to say the child had been born with a Silver Spoon up it’s A**?
Just wondering…
imkeh, “Providence.”