"I felt the conversation was all about last night's ratings, and as the fourth-place network that was a negative way to start the day," Silverman said in an interview Tuesday. "I wanted these meetings to be more forward-looking, and now they are."
Known for his effusive charm and his ravenous appetite, Silverman has a penchant for expensive sushi and for triple-booking dinners. It's not unusual for him to have a business meeting at the unorthodox hour of 9:15 p.m. After a few drinks, Silverman might bear-hug a top network executive and exclaim, "I love you, man." Even in the daylight hours, Silverman punctuates his e-mails with "Love U!"
"I'm pretty much a 24/7 guy," Silverman said. "I shut down the BlackBerry at 1 a.m."
Before NBC's Memorial Day weekend management shake-up that installed Silverman, others had come to court him. Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp was about to make a large investment in Reveille, valued at more than $50 million, that would have allowed the company to expand further.
Other major media companies, including Walt Disney Co. and News Corp., were in the hunt and discussed having Silverman join their ranks.
But Zucker swooped in and signed Silverman, pushing out NBC's previous top programmer, Kevin Reilly. Since then, NBC Universal has negotiated to buy out IAC's interest in Reveille and has been making arrangements to deal with his ongoing profit from Reveille's shows, including "Ugly Betty," NBC's "The Biggest Loser" and "Nashville Star," which plays on the USA Network.
To avoid any conflict of interest, Silverman's share of the profits from his current shows and those in the development pipeline will be put into a blind trust, NBC has said. He will not draw profits from Reveille shows initiated since he joined NBC.
"A blind trust is an acceptable way to deal with the generation of profits from these shows," said C. Kerry Fields, a business law and ethics professor at the USC Marshall School of Business.
But the real problem, Fields said, is that Silverman will decide which NBC shows compete with his successful "Ugly Betty." It runs on rival ABC in the lucrative 8 p.m. Thursday slot.
"It's an inherent conflict of interest, and I don't think it's setting the right example for the rest of the company," Fields said.
Silverman said that wouldn't be an issue. "Making NBC the No. 1 network is what I'm focused on, and Thursday is very important," he said. "I'm going to put a ton of energy into making that night work."
