‘Smash’: Katharine McPhee, Robert Greenblatt, Theresa Rebeck, and More on Season 1

Can Smash save NBC? Not quite. Despite media reports that Smash—which reportedly cost $7.5 million for the pilot and roughly $3.5 million for each episode—will either make or break the fourth-place network, NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt was quick to dispel rumors that the network’s fortunes could turn around on a single show.

“We have a lot to gain if Smash is a hit,” Greenblatt told The Daily Beast. “But if it doesn’t work in the long run, trust me, we’ll just be putting up more shows. It won’t be the end of the road.”

Still, given that, Greenblatt did acknowledge that there was a certain amount of risk involved.

“This is obviously a big, important show for us,” he said. “It’s a pretty big swing doing something that’s unusual and audacious. We are looking to turn the network around and build our audience back up. The way to do that is with a combination of things that are really high quality and are relatively safe, and those that are high quality and are somewhat risky. This would fall into the risky category.”