Greenblatt Set To Craft NBC Prime-Time Strategy

NBC, the peacock network, should get a full-scale preening at the hands of its new entertainment chief once the Comcast Corp. takeover is complete. Comcast has said that it's appointing Bob Greenblatt, the programming executive who transformed Showtime into a pay TV powerhouse, to head NBC Entertainment.


Bob Greenblatt

Comcast on Tuesday gained approval for the $13.8 billion acquisition of NBC's parent company, NBC Universal, from the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department. Exactly what Greenblatt will do is unclear, but he's a widely respected programmer in Hollywood, known for taking risks that pay off.

At Showtime, he shepherded onto TV hit shows such as "The Tudors," "Dexter" and "Weeds," all of which have gone on for multiple seasons. NBC, the fourth-ranked broadcaster, has only recently lived through the debacle in which it put host Jay Leno's talk show on at 10 p.m. on weeknights, and replaced five hours a week of other programming in order to save money.

Local stations and viewers revolted and after a period of upheaval, Leno went back to hosting "The Tonight Show" at 11:35 p.m. Replacement Conan O'Brien left with a big severance check to host his own show on TBS, and things are somewhat back to normal.

NBC, last among the big broadcasters, has also been a drag on earnings of NBC Universal, although the money-losing Winter Olympics in Vancouver last year did more to hurt profits than its lackluster prime-time line-up. Still, Greenblatt's appointment to replace Jeff Gaspin was the most high-profile executive change in the shake-up that incoming NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke outlined in November.

The most recent changes at the network have been the mid-season additions of shows such as "The Cape" and "Harry's Law," and the reshaping of Thursday night into an all-comedy line-up.

NBC got its start in 1926 as the nation's first radio network. Its parent company, the Radio Corporation of America, figured people would buy radios if they had interesting things to listen to. The network began TV broadcasts in 1939 and produced TV's first star in Milton Berle in 1948. Though it faced fierce competition over the decades, NBC was formidable in the 1990s, with Thursdays declared a "must-see" night of television.

In agreeing to sell a controlling stake to Comcast, General Electric Co. is unraveling part of the legacy of former Chairman Jack Welch. In 1986 he bought RCA and NBC to help his industrial conglomerate get a reliable source of cash while overseas manufacturing competition loomed.

GE obtained the Universal Pictures movie studio and theme parks from Vivendi SA in 2004 in a deal that gave Vivendi a 20 percent stake in the combined venture, NBC Universal. Vivendi sold its stake to GE, which will keep a 49 percent stake in the venture for at least 3 ½ years before winding it down, with Philadelphia-based Comcast in line to take greater control.
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Source: The Associated Press