Reilly not one to be out-Foxed
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- July
- 9
He was only out of work from one national holiday—Memorial Day—to another—Independence Day.
Kevin Reilly, the recently deposed head of NBC entertainment who brought The Office to the Peacock network but was sacked in favor of younger talent, has landed at Fox, the AP is reporting.
Reilly’s been named entertainment chairman and will re-team with (and report to) Peter Liguori, Fox’s new entertainment president. The two last partnered at sister station FX from 2000 to 2003.
Reilly’s ouster two months ago could be seen a mile away, given the network’s chronic fourth-place standing. Still, it was Reilly who showed shows like The Office and 30 Rock the patience they deserved and required to succeed.
His firing seemed like the kind of knee-jerk management change owners of losing ballclubs are typically guilty of: you can’t fire the players responsible so can the guy in charge.
Now, as Variety reports, Reilly is in the strange position of having to try and kill his own young. The very shows he shepherded from conception to critical successes are the ones he’ll be battling for viewers’ eyeballs. And he’ll be armed with ammunition like American Idol, The Simpsons and 24.
One of his chief nemeses will be the man who replaced him, Ben Silverman, whose old production company Reveille created The Office and ABC’s Ugly Betty.
Not that Reilly is looking backward. Of his old digs, he said today, “there was an uphill battle there, at a time when there was tremendous negative momentum in general at the network.”
Sounds like a man who’s confident he’s landed on his feet—at least until Labor Day or the next Nielsens nosedive.
This entry was posted
on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 9:17 pm by Brian Howard.
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