NBC has a big job for `Office' exec
In 1985, when Ben Silverman was in junior high, he told his mom he needed to stay home from school to watch TV.
"He said, 'Brandon Tartikoff's mother let him stay home from school,' " Mary Silverman recalled in an interview Tuesday, referring to the legendary NBC entertainment president. "From the age of 10, Ben always wanted to be the head of NBC."
So after graduating from Tufts University in 1992, she said, he headed for Los Angeles "with one wool suit and an un-air-conditioned Volkswagen in what was the hottest summer on record."
Now her son is about to really feel the heat. The 36-year-old just became co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and of the NBC Universal Television Studio, sharing the newly created top job with Marc Graboff, 51, a lawyer and NBC Universal's top TV executive on the West Coast.
Their mission is to hoist the once-proud peacock out of the ratings cellar and make it relevant in the Internet age.
Silverman, a former William Morris talent agent, seems to have the TV-show chops: His production firm, Reveille, is behind some popular properties, including NBC's "The Office" and ABC's "Ugly Betty." He's executive producer of several reality shows, including "Nashville Star" on USA Network, "Blow Out" on Bravo and "Date My Mom" and "Parental Control" on MTV.
The Silverman-Graboff announcement, made Tuesday by NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, came three months after the company extended NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly's contract for three years. Reilly was pushed out to make room for Silverman.
"Ben is a force of nature, and a great creative force," Zucker said in a conference call with reporters. He said that he had long wanted to hire Silverman but that the timing hadn't been right until two weeks ago, when they began talking seriously.
Silverman was considering selling part of Reveille, so "we had to move quickly and decisively," Zucker said.
Silverman said Zucker "came at me really aggressively," though it was probably an easy sell.
"It was a dream job for me," Silverman said in an interview.
The timing of the shake-up is awkward. Just two weeks ago, Reilly unveiled NBC's fall schedule for advertisers in New York. The network's sales force is about to start selling the bulk of the ad inventory for the fall season, an annual ritual that last year brought in nearly $2 billion in prime-time commitments.
