NBC Chief's Premature Exultation

Is Ben Silverman out of his mind? The spanking-new NBC co-chairman has barely begun his turnaround of fourth-place NBC, but he sounds as cocky as if he'd already achieved it.

Page Six claims Silverman's been "pissing off major players and agents" by not returning their phone calls and blowing off meetings.

Rather than respond with a "no comment" or a piece of generic corporate boilerplate about valuing all relationships, etc., Silverman launched into this rant:

Karma's a bitch in this job. If I'm not returning people's calls, there's a reason. You can't be moving as quickly as we are and expect the bottom of the heap to get as much attention. I'm busy returning calls from Fortune 500 CEOs, not some junior agents. You can't expect me to sit in pitch meetings. Agents hate [that] they can't control me. [NBC is] not dependent on them. We are proactive.

Considering that knives are already out for Silverman, and that he still has yet to create a hit comedy or drama from scratch, I suspect the phrase "Karma's a bitch in this job" will come back to haunt him.