WRITETHRU (UPDATED THROUGHOUT): It sounds as if Jeff Zucker wants to flip the switch at NBC and Universal, and scare the bejesus out of his Hollywood executives. Is it to divert attention from his own monstrous failure as their chairman?

Zucker also told Hollywood privately yesterday that “there are changes and they’ll be imminent” at NBC. He implied that they involve Ben Silverman, whose job has transitioned to that of a “glorified ad salesman”. (See below).

This coincides with Silverman’s own private conversations, as recently as this week, playing coy and not denying rumors that he’s going to leave NBC and run Britain’s ITV. Those first surfaced around May 10th when the British press pointed to him as the “ideal” candidate. And they were denied to me back then by people around Ben. But now the rumors are back and much more intense, and those same people around Silverman are telling me a different story this time. “The only question is whether they can pay him enough money,” an NBC insider told me about ITV. “He mentioned to me a while ago that it’s real. Which I took to mean they’d contacted him and he was considering it. But he said, ‘They’d have to pay me a lot of money.'”

Tonight, NBC said in response to the ITV rumors that “Ben is under contract to NBC”. (Despite the fact that there has been no formal deal announced to renew Silverman’s contract, a source close to him confirmed to me tonight that Ben extended his contract “awhile back”.) But I am told that ITV has high-level head hunters and industry reps pulling together a list of candidates for the ITV chief executive job, “and they continue to put Ben’s name at the top of the list” because of his UK experience,” a source close to Silverman told me tonight. Ben, of course, worked in London for the William Morris Agency. Both as an agent and as a producer for the Reveille TV company he founded, Silverman brought UK show after UK show to U.S. network television, from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? to The Office. He’s done the same at NBC. Meanwhile, NBC’s summer lineup has a distinctly British feel, as the UK press have noted. There’s the British drama Merlin airing in primetime on June 21st. The network already has the U.S. version of ITV’s reality hit I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (even though it already bombed on ABC), the upcoming The Great American Road Trip from BBC Worldwide, and a 4th series of the UK format America’s Got Talent on June 23rd. Meanwhile, UK’s Shed Media will make Jerry Seinfeld’s new NBC show The Marriage Ref, while UK’s Power produced NBC’s 13-part series Crusoe, and UK’s Carnival Films made NBC’s The Philanthropist. And then there’s the British reality czar that Ben brought in from BBC Worldwide, Paul Telegdy. “I have always had an interest in the global production business and UK production, and I have a particular affinity and connection with British TV,” Silverman recently told the British press.

Of course, Ben may just be playing with everyone’s heads. But, this being NBCU, Silverman instead could wind up with a Peter Principle-style promotion. Zucker may make public what he’s already done in private: he quietly moved Silverman out of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios business and into NBCU corporate marketing to focus on advertising-related business. (FYI, I know that GE chairman/CEO Jeff Immelt has always been impressed with Silverman’s salesmanship abilities in the advertising arena ever since Ben personally convinced Madison Avenue to buy many millions of dollars more commercial time for NBC’s Beijing Olympics.) “No one will acknowledge it, but Ben is out of the [entertainment] picture,” one source explained to me. “He’s not involved in the day-to-day anymore. Instead, he’s doing marketing for the corporate side.” Agreed another of my sources, “He’s not involved in pitches, development, or scheduling. The running joke you hear often is that he’s a ‘glorified ad salesman’.”

No one believes Zucker would replace Silverman. Instead, the thinking is that he’d leave NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios under the control of Marc Graboff, who with Ben is Co-Chairman of NBC Entertainment and NBC Media Studios, and Angela Bromstad, President of Primetime Entertainment for NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios. Right now, Bromstad is hosting an NBC “programming retreat”. But Ben was in Washington DC today for a screening. And tomorrow he’ll be a guest at the White House.

Silverman told The New York Times in mid-May that he planned to stay at NBC because he’s “committed”. One source close to Ben emailed me tonight the same sentiment: “When Ben leaves NBC, it will be to work in an entirely different arena than television. He loves NBC and (as he has said before) it is like playing for the Yankees of television.” On the other hand, Ben has often told pals that, in terms of timing, this June/July would be best if ever he jumped or were pushed. “Right now, Ben is figuring out his next step,” an NBC insider just explained me.

58 Comments

Working Actor • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

Oh brother.

MAK • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

For the sake of my GE stock fire him…and yourself

James • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

If Zucker gets rid of Ben NBC will be completely bereft of any quality programming minds. Ben’s shows (both with Reveille and NBC) are quality and bright spots in an otherwise creatively empty network.

I bristle every time I read a story about a change at NBC and the change is not Jeff Zucker deploying his golden parachute

tammanycall • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

It’s a start, but when will Zucker’s head roll? His reign has seen NBC go from the number one network to the town’s punchline.

F. • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

Well he’s always had more traction over there – finding formats that is. But in terms of running things? I hear he likes it Over There for personal reasons. And knowing Ben, he’ll make sure he gets paid alot – but really, don’t U do it for the love Ben?

that's a scoop! • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

wow… Variety’s coverage is amazing… Way to go Nikki! I’m sure Variety will report on it in September.

Bye Bye Ben • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

Good. Perhaps someone can step in and save the network before it completely implodes. Talk about snorting your way to the top.

Hank Yablonski • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

One of the coke snorting monkeys is going to England?!!! GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!!

Seriously, somebody needs to check on her, Ben’s gonna be looking to tap that ass.

anhonestAnswer • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

What the F? So Ben swindles them for a nice exec. salary while he sells his Reveille for $125 million. Then leaves. What is this? Why isn’t Zucker fired as well? I said, why isn’t Zucker fired as well!

Marginally good news. I’ve always been an NBC guy but it’s been tough these past few years. ABC was in the dumps for a couple of years and all it took was Desperate Housewives/Lost to get it going again. I keep waiting for the same thing to happen to NBC and it just hasn’t.

ITV needs a CEO who can do sales and understands the web and internationalisation, the problem is the budgets and opportunities/costs in the uk [for itv] are on a lower plain.

On the other other hand, the management strategy at ITV has been so bereft of drive and direction, maybe not so different from NBC, that he’d be able to get quick results from such low hanging fruit!

For those who might not follow such matters, ITV recently had to write-off some silly figure like £2.5bn recently, and has been trying to sell assets left, right and centre desperately trying to raise cash, while having little to invest in its web/digital platforms.

His rival for the job, who’s already been talking with ITV shareholders, is an ex-Murdoch lieutenant by the name of Tony Ball who ran BskyB and is very tech-aware.

Kind regards,

Shakir Razak

Hawk • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

As always the firings start with the scapegoats. The saying goes: a fish stinks from the head. At NBC that’s Zucker and at GE that’s Immelt. They are the ones that need to go. At this point just pay them off and end the agony. Two once great companies have been needlessly run into the ground.

Charlotte A. Cavatica • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

Re: Silverman, “good riddance to bad rubbish” as my grandma likes to say. The guy is such a fucking clown I’m surprised it’s taken this long.

As far as house clearing goes, this has been a good week in H-town. All Grey out and things will get happier.

Re: Zucker – any time spent fantasizing about his firing is time of your lives you will never get back. Here’s a guy who should have been fired 5 – 8 years ago and not only wasn’t he given the hook but he has continued to fail upwards. I try to avoid thinking about him at all – theory being that every negative thought I have about the guy just increasing his chance of being promoted.

anon • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

I’d like to see Jeff Zucker fire himself! Nikki can you arrange that? Thanks!

KC • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

The blind leading the blind leading the incompetent where all they are doing is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship by being married to a development-promotion-sales model rendered obsolete by not being adjusted to account for the 21st century’s explosion in media options and technology.

One example: tell Jeff to ask NBC’s CMO, John Miller, why he knowingly – and “knowingly” is the key word – allows NBC’s billion-dollar promotional budget to be wasted, meaning that their promotion actually suppresses sampling, and thus ratings. If you’re a producer with low-rated programming, chances are your show didn’t fail; rather, their totally-ineffective promotion did by not generating high enough sampling levels and, if it did, many more would be successful.

The irony: NBC knows how to increase ratings by 50% or more – it’s confirmed in e-mails from senior marketing and development executives – but changing for the better is a foreign subject for a company run by people who fear that better methods might invalidate them.

Bruce Partington • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

Wow, KC’s right.

lisa harrison • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

Jeff Zuker like Ben Silverman, completely lacks creativity, therefore, any change or department restructuring will also lack any sort of creativity, it will be like their schedule. They can’t think of new programs, they just recycle from the past… i.e. the office or even worse, Knight Rider. Therefore, despite your reporting something coming down the pike… there will be nothing, but nothing packaged to look like something different, but the package will come off and it will in fact just be nothing!

Oh crap no. ITV are screwed as it is. They need someone who knows what they’re doing and can make programmes that people actually want to watch.

JULIA X • on Jun 24, 2009 6:28 pm

There’s no difference between Zucker and Sucker. But the joke is on the shareholders who are keeping these incompetent idiots on executive positions.
As for Silverman I don’t think it’s a big deal that he saw a format on UK TV and brought it in US television.
He didn’t create it. He didn’t invent it. He was spoonfed a FOR SALE show. Big deal…
Nikki, you have to uncover the whole network of coke-snorting network idiots that make horrible the lives of creative people everyday in the industry.