Ben Silverman Out At NBC

Quite a surprise to wake up to this morning: co-chairman of NBC Entertainment Studios and Universal Media Studios Ben Silverman is leaving. The surprise is due to the fact that, not only are we quickly approaching the fall season, but just two weeks ago his employment contract had been extended.

When I first heard about Silverman's departure, I have to admit that a smile came to my face. Since a young age, I've always felt like NBC was my channel. Like your mom or grandma who refers to her favorite soap opera as "my story", throughout my life I felt like I had become invested in the network. That's loyalty only a true TV junkie could possibly understand, of course, but hey, that's why I'm writing a TV blog for absolutely no money and you are not.

Anyway, the majority of my favorite shows were on the network and many of the shows shaped my hopes and aspirations as I grew up. My life long fascination with New York City was constantly egged on watching shows like Law & Order, Mad About You and Seinfeld. The dazzling skyline after the evening news and shots of Rockefeller Center didn't hurt, either.

When Silverman first took position at the network, I was pretty hesitant. NBC was pretty down at the time, already in final place, and losing big time. What I knew of Silverman didn't give me much hope. He had produced one of my favorite shows, The Office, but also complete crap like Date My Mom and The Biggest Loser.

I also thought it odd that they would hire someone with so much potential for conflict of interest, considering he would still profit from both his current Reveille shows already on the network and even new ones sold after his move. Trumping even that: not long after taking his place at the company, stories circulated about frat-boy behavior, caged tigers, and lot's of party-hopping.

Here we are at the end of his reign now and I am a bit conflicted. Should I celebrate? He was the guy that made the ridiculous decision to cancel both Medium and My Name Is Earl and then make it publicly known that he did so because, according to The LA Times "neither the fans nor the advertisers had waged a campaign to save them the way viewers and the Subway restaurant chain did for Chuck."

Well, yeah, you know, people didn't wage a campaign to save the shows because no one knew they were on the verge of being canceled. I mean, you know, most networks don't cancel a highly rated show like Medium for no reason, therefore the fans, even devoted TV geeks who try to stay "in the know" such as myself, would never have imagined that we would be obligated to campaign around every single show they want to return, especially if it is one of the highest rated and most consistent shows on a dying network.

But then there's also the fact that, without Silverman, Friday Night Lights, easily one of the most brilliant shows to ever grace network television, probably wouldn't not have made it past it's first season. Because of the deal Silverman worked out with DirecTV, we are guaranteed new Friday Night Lights up through it's fifth season.

So there ya go. It's hard to know what to feel. He made some terrible decisions, acted like an ass, but also created some quality TV. His tenure was not all good or all bad. Not sure if it was even more bad than good or vice versa.

Anyway, we're not gonna go into all the politics and power shifts involved in his departure. If you're interested in that side of things, I would suggest reading the Hitfix article about the situation - they lay it all out in an easy to understand way.

Update: While rinsing and shampooing this very morning, I thought of another point I wanted to bring up about Silverman's reign: the majority of "new" scripted programming on NBC hasn't actually been "new". In his time at the network we've been treated to really terrible remakes (Bionic Woman, Knight Rider), imports (Merlin, The Listener), or remakes of imports (Kath & Kim). There's even been a remake of an import remake (Parks & Recreation).

Just kidding about that last one. While the whole mock documentary thing was over long before it debuted, Parks & Recreation definately got better towards the end of the season. At first we kinda passed it off as The Office (US Version) part two, but it kinda grew into it's own eventually.

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Interesting Article In The NY Times

The New York Times has an interesting article about the battle for "Medium" waged between CBS and NBC.  Who knew NBC wanted "Ghost Whisperer"?  I don't see that show fitting quite as well as it does at CBS.  "Medium", though will probably prosper at it's new home on CBS. 

 

I'm usually concerned with moving a good show to any Friday night slot but if you're going to do it, CBS is the network for it.  Some how, and I'm sure Fox, NBC and ABC executives all wish they knew, CBS has managed to pull in mid-week style ratings on a weekend night - not heard of very often.

 

The quotes from NBC executives are near laughable, much like ones reported in an LA Times blog a few days ago.

 

You can read the article here.

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Medium Producers Fire Back At NBC

Don't get your hopes up just yet, kids. "Medium" is still technically canceled. NBC surprisingly axed the relatively high performing, good quality drama and right away rumors started circulating that the show could gain a new home at CBS.

It wasn't long before an LA Times blog had posted that such a deal had been struck, and various blogs and other news sources followed their lead before LA Times had to admit no deal had been reached yet. What they did have, though, was a great quote from the show's studio, CBS Studios, which actually says pretty much what my previous post did only more eloquently.

The quote: "NBC's cancellation of 'Medium' is inexplicable to us. The ratings don't lie. 'Medium' outperforms many of NBC's renewed shows. Despite inconsistent scheduling, 'Medium,' under the creative vision of Glenn Gordon Caron, one of the most preeminent producers in television, has always performed with distinction both creatively and commercially. Multiple-award-winning actress Patricia Arquette and the cast have delivered a stellar series for five consistent seasons. The awards and ratings speak for themselves. We believe the show has a significant future and await developments."

TV Squad made it sound like the CBS network released that quote, which would amount to a war of words between the two networks, but that quote is actually from a CBS Studios spokesperson. While the two companies are corporate siblings, I think it's rather important to point out that they are separate entities.

Is it war between Medium producers and NBC? Nah, they've been canceled, the producers spoke up saying what was on most people's mind, the network will probably release a short statement that praises the show but says something about moving on or going in a new direction.

Let's just hope the producers and the CBS network can work something out.

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Bubble Shows Cut

NBC has canceled both "My Name Is Earl" and "Medium" and CBS cut "The Unit". Bad news all around. I'm really surprised by the news about "Medium" as the show is a consistant performer and when it comes to ratings, well...They're higher than most other NBC shows.

According to Variety, though, all is not lost. CBS Studios produces "Medium", so there's talk of possibly moving the show to the studio sister network, CBS, for a possible pairing with Friday nights' "Ghost Whisperer". I'd be down.

Same goes for "My Name Is Earl", which is good news for those intrigued by the unfinished ending of the season finale. Show is produced by 20th Century Fox TV, sister to the Fox network, so there's plans to shop the series to both Fox and even ABC. With ABC's big push towards comedy next year that could be decent idea and Fox can use all the help it can get with comedy. Plus I could see Fox being a pretty decent home for the show's redneck and off the wall humor.

I do have admit I'm pretty down about this news. "Earl" and "Medium" are two of my favorite shows and I'm a watcher of "The Unit", as well.

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NBC Renews Medium!

Great news from NBC! The peacock network has officially announced that Medium will be part of their 2009/2010 season! Fantastic news in my book. The show was pretty stellar from the very beginning and each season has gotten progressively better.

Tomorrow, make sure you tune in (or set your DVR) for a two hour special starting an hour earlier than usual at 9pm.

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2009 Fall Season Preview?

USA Today featured a rundown of what shows have been renewed, what's cancelled and what's still on the bubble.

Here's the link.

I have to say, I am absolutely shocked to see Medium and My Name Is Earl on NBC's bubble list. I can only assume they're not really on the bubble but have just not been announced for renewal yet. If not, I'm gonna be rather angry. This better not be a side effect of that ludicrous Jay Leno 10pm debacle.

I was also surprised to see other network shows that are on the bubble, such as and Samantha Who?The Unit. With all the praise Samantha Who? recieved last year I would have expected it to make it past season 2. As for The Unit, if it's ratings are lagging only one thing can be blamed: sports. It's constantly pre-empted so fans probably miss it quite often.

As for cancellations, the only one that really surprised me was Eleventh Hour. I've enjoyed that show since the beginning. The characters are great and I found the premise and story lines to rather interesting. It's somewhat shocking to see a procedural cop shows taken off like that.

I was also sort of surprised by NBC's cancellation of Life. It hasn't really been all that great this season but the great camera work, action sequences and soundtrack are still A+.

Download them at iTunes: Medium, Life, The Unit, Samantha Who?, My Name Is Earl.

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Incoming!

Slim pickings tonight (Sunday), people. As usual, CBS is running behind due to sports (golf, I believe), so adjust your DVR's as necessary The Unit and Cold Case fans.

I've actually given up watching Cold Case due to so many episodes being cutoff because of sports. I try to DVR The Unit and sometimes I remember to fix the end time but usually it's torrent time! Hopefully now that I no longer work Sunday nights my average will get better.

And don't forget Breaking Bad. While I love this show, it's one of the few that I prefer to backup a bit on my DVR and watch a few episodes back to back.

Monday:
House. I'm hoping they don't waste too much time on House's murder theory. While last week's episode was quite fantastic, I thought that was the one weak part.

24. It's getting really late! Jon Voight was scarily awesome last week as Jonas Hodges and I'm hoping he keeps it up for this episode. I'm also hoping someone finally sees Olivia Taylor as the snake she seems to be. I'm wondering if this week may finally see the return of Kim Bauer, too. Hopefully so.

Medium. Ah, Allison, the love of my life. A little back and forth this week as Allison gets to relive her pregnancy. It was rather disturbing when Marie crept into Allison and Joe's bedroom with that gun. Now we get to see pre-Marie.

Castle. Last week we were treated an ice pop druggie that no one bothered looking for and this week we are given a ritualistic killing. Behold the ups and downs of the modern cop drama.

Saving Grace. We're creeping up on Leon's final hours - will Grace have a revelation and step in? I'm wondering how rough the back and forth between Leon and Earl as time reaches the midnight hour.

Tuesday:
Fringe. I still haven't watched last week's episode. I had to download the torrent after returning home from work to realize the last 7 or so minutes were cut off by the ultimate in "illiterate programming". Way to force me into being illegal, Fox.

Rescue Me. Ah, finally. After a really lengthy hiatus, last week's episode was chock full of back story and a few new surprises. I don't about anyone else but Chief Feinberg has been creeping me out. Obviously, Tommy's gonna keep his job or there wouldn't be a show but I suspect the upcoming Section 8 hearing will be a laugher. I'm really looking forward to Tommy learning of Black Shawn and his daughters relationship, as well.

Cupid. We're up to the third episode and I'm digging it. Sarah Paulson is not quite as cute as she was in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip due to her characters jaded attitude but Bobby Cannavale's sweetly determined Eros/Trevor balances her out quite well.

Get them at iTunes.

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