One of Hollywood's juiciest television dramas came to a close Monday when NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman said he was leaving the network after two tumultuous years.
In the end, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker's big gamble to hand over the keys to NBC's storied legacy to an aggressive young television producer who vowed to revolutionize the network backfired.
Silverman, a self-described "rock star" TV executive who frequently grabbed headlines with antics including calling a rival a "moron" and being featured on a YouTube video wrapped in only a towel and singing the blues, is departing to start a company backed by Barry Diller, the former Hollywood mogul turned Internet entrepreneur. Silverman leaves the peacock network, a onetime powerhouse with such hits as "Seinfeld," "Cheers" and "Law & Order," struggling to reverse course in the head winds of an advertising recession.
As part of a sweeping management overhaul unveiled Monday, Zucker elevated one of his most trusted lieutenants: Jeff Gaspin, a low-key executive who started on the financial side of the TV business before becoming a programmer. Gaspin has overseen NBC's strongly profitable entertainment cable channels and was put in charge of all of NBC's television units.
The latest NBC shake-up comes at a critical juncture for the 44-year-old Zucker, who went to work at NBC in 1986 as a researcher for the Olympics, the beginning of his steady march up the corporate ladder. The network is preparing to undertake another risky move he has championed -- bringing comedian Jay Leno to prime time in September.
Across the sprawling company, Zucker faces other challenges. TV viewers' increased use of digital video recorders is jeopardizing the mainstay 30-second commercial, which has long underwritten the high cost of producing TV shows. Advertising sales have been sluggish for NBC's television outlets, signaling further choppy financial quarters ahead. As troublesome, the once reliable Universal Pictures movie studio has stumbled badly at the box office this year with a string of flops that has dismayed executives at NBC's parent company, General Electric Co.
In an interview, Zucker described Silverman's exit as a resolution that "made sense for everybody," while at the same time praising him for a fresh perspective in dealing with advertisers.
