Ben Silverman's Unlikely Rise

Marsaili McGrath/AP Can the NBC chief hang onto his job?

Last week, an item on Page Six purported to explain the source of NBC’s miserable performance in the ratings this fall. The responsible party? One Katherine Pope, aka “the Black Widow,” because “every program she touches turns to death.”

Chances are many readers had never heard of Pope, who is the president of NBC’s television production studio (which oversees such shows as Heroes, House, and The Office). And chances are Pope never imagined that she, like Sarah Palin, would become a target of anonymous attacks that distract from the more significant shortcomings of the man she supposedly serves.

“Page Six? What is Katherine Pope doing on Page Six?” a top executive at a rival network asked incredulously, adding, “It’s obvious where it came from.”

The industry’s collective assumption was that the item came, directly or not, from Pope’s boss, Ben Silverman, head of NBC. In fact, Pope has been mentioned as a possible successor to Silverman by many in the business who have been composing his corporate obituary for months.

Hollywood buzzed for weeks after agent Ari Emanuel gave Silverman a public dressing down for missing a meeting.

Hired in May 2007, Silverman was an unlikely choice to be a network “suit.” The lanky, boyish former agent ran a successful production company, but he also had a well-established penchant for partying. Rumors circulated that a company-mandated drug test had to be delayed so Silverman could pass.

But NBC was flailing and Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, was chasing heat. Silverman’s production company, Reveille, had successfully borrowed program “formats” from other countries. The Office came from the British original; Ugly Betty derived from a Colombian telenovela. Silverman could be presented as a departure from old school ways of doing business.

The industry’s skepticism about the hire appeared to be justified in July, when TV critics held their annual gathering at the Hilton in Beverly Hills. NBC had no complete episodes of its new programs to show, and Silverman had to admit a spin-off of The Office that had been dangled in front of advertisers didn’t exist.

In an industry famous for backbiting, it is hardly surprising that many have been rooting against Silverman, who went from rich to richer after he took the NBC job. That’s because NBC’s parent company, GE, allowed him to keep a stake in Reveille. So in addition to owning a piece of existing shows like The Office and The Biggest Loser, Silverman was able to revive Reveille projects that had already been pitched unsuccessfully to the network, including American Gladiators and Kath & Kim.