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ben silverman
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television
celebrity-industrial complex
Pimping Tina Fey's Heart Part Of NBC Exec's Awful Vision Of The Future
Ben Silverman is NBC's wunderkind programming chief, close friend to the daughter of News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch and, based on a keynote interview he just gave at an industry event, an even bigger corporate whore than fictional network exec Jack Donaghy on NBC's 30 Rock. Silverman outlined plans to leave viewers of some new shows, including Kath and Kim, hanging at close of the broadcast, forced to log on to NBC's website to see how the program ends. The plan would screw viewers even more severely than the time Silverman scheduled the explicit MILF Island episode of 30 Rock during the heart of his new "family night." But, fine, whatever, as a network executive Silverman is pretty much contractually obligated to come up with awful ideas that will never go anywhere. But why did Silverman have to drag Tina Fey into his keynote disaster, and claim she revels in 30 Rock's marketing deals? More »
evil corporations in action
NBC "Family Hour" Hosted "MILF Island"
That "MILF Island" episode of 30 Rock everyone was talking about Friday? In which 20 hot moms square off in front of 50 eighth-grade boys at "Erection Cove?" It aired during NBC's "Family Hour," in which the whole family is supposed to be able to gather in front of the TV together. NBC executive Ben Silverman re-launched the concept just 10 days ago. Anyone who took the man at his word — and hopefully few people did — either had a very awkward night or has a very interesting family. Now NBC is trying to rewrite what it meant by "family hour." Here's network exec Mitch Metcalf in tomorrow's Times: More »
tv & internet
quarterlife Is a Gigantic Failure
Oops! Remember that show quarterlife about bloggy, navel-gazing twentysomethings that started out on the internet and then moved to television and was supposed to have cracked the code of 'puter to tele conversion? Well, as it turns out no one wants to watch the internet on TV. The NBC show, which was snagged by hip and edgy (and increasingly annoying) young exec Ben Silverman, netted a paltry 3.1 million viewers, making it one of the lowest rated entries for that time slot (Tuesday, 10pm) in the network's past 20 years. It's funny though, because 3.1 million viewers is a lot. On the internet. What's the lesson here? Well mostly that it's going to take a little more elbow grease (and, erm, some better content) to figure out this whole making-internet-stuff-palatable-to-regular-folks thing. Oh, and don't make a show called "quarterlife". [Reuters] After the jump, the first installment that aired online. More »
elisabeth murdoch
