Will Reveille Survive — Or Even Thrive? — Without Ben Silverman?

MediaWeek:

Reveille, the independent television production/distribution company founded by Ben Silverman (now NBC entertainment chief) six years ago, and recently sold by him to Elisabeth Murdoch for $125 million, is at a crossroads.

Whether friend or foe--and Silverman has plenty of both in the television business--he was the idea guy. He was the guy with the international contacts, having spent several years prior to starting Reveille as head of the international division of William Morris in London. He was very young, totally happening--and he got Reveille onto the networks' radar screens. He was also the mentor of the four managing directors he left behind to run to company. So now Howard Owens, Chris Grant and Mark Koops--three execs he brought over from William Morris when he started Reveille, along with Lee Rierson, who joined from ABC at the outset--have to step up.

Network executives who are not fans of Silverman--none of whom would speak for attribution--say his departure is a chance for Reveille to begin doing business with their networks anew. "No Reveille business has been pitched to us this year," says one network honcho. "But I like Liz Murdoch so I would hear a pitch from Reveille now."
In fact, there are a number of network executives who are actually pulling for the Owens-Grant-Koops-Rierson team to take the company beyond where Silverman brought it before his departure. But while the quartet are clearly confident in their abilities, they still hold their former boss and mentor in high regard.

"Ben created this company," Owens says. "He was a workhorse. He had a good gut for knowing what shows people like. He told us what formats to go after. And we followed his lead." The "challenge and the fun," he adds, "is trying to do it on our own."

Read the whole story: MediaWeek

Comments

[Paw1]

Classic pump and dump. Silverman gets himself the honcho job at NBC, gets the company to buy a bunch of Reveille's crappy overseas format ripoffs while he's still a company principle (with GE presumably turning a blind eye to this), then turns around and sells the whole thing to his "friend" Liz Murdoch. Ben pockets a cool 60 mil and the company's essentially worthless now that their major buyer is no longer an owner.

P.S. Silverman will not last out the year as Programming chief, based on the network's awful performance while he's in the driver's seat as well as the fact that he's a raging cokehead. Well done, Ben!

[drzoon]

where is it? where is my comment?

it was truthful and related fully to the article.

where is my comment?

[drzoon]

Ha!

Howard and to a lesser degree Mark had to hide behind the skirts of 3BALL because they don't now how to produce! Ben himself said that they made their money off of format sales... because they couldn't actually "PRODUCE" ANYTHING THEMSELVES"!

As for Howard... he's the typical colon hole that burns through money and SCREAMS at everyone around him because he doesn't have the chops to know how to "get it right the first time" HIMSELF. Typical "throw money at the problem"... when truth be told, there shouldn't have been a problem in the first place!

Ben was great. Great ideas and instincts.. but a marginal manager because he didn't want to get into the messy managing stuff with "the boys" and kick their rear ends when they messed up.

Ben will be great at NBC. But don't count on his old company for anything creative or responsible as far as REAL PRODUCING goes.