Ben Silverman's Unlikely Rise

At one point, Seacrest noted that Silverman was celebrating his birthday (his 38th) and told him, “You are my cake, I am your candle.” When Seacrest asked Silverman what he was wearing, the line went dead.

A few weeks later, in September, Silverman accepted an award for NBC’s commitment to diversity at Outfest. “I debated whether or not to say this, as I am a bit of a press target,” he said. According to an account in The Advocate, those in the audience collectively inhaled, “waiting for him to come out.” No such luck. “No, it’s not me,” Silverman continued. “But my mother is gay.”

None of this would matter if Silverman had come up with an outsize hit for NBC. But his reinvention of television hasn’t produced success. He greenlighted several shows, including Kath & Kim, which is based on an Australian original, without the benefit of a pilot—a move intended to cut costs. But the show’s lackluster ratings turned out to be an object lesson on the value of pilots.

Silverman has been given credit for cutting profitable deals with advertisers; for example, partnering with General Motors on the series My Own Worst Enemy with Christian Slater. Silverman said the new mantra was that ratings were less important than profit margins. But ratings do matter: My Own Worst Enemy was canceled after airing only four times.

Despite it all, a source inside NBC-Universal says Silverman seems to have held onto the confidence of his boss. Zucker was widely disparaged in Hollywood when he ran NBC, the insider says, and left filled with resentment at the town. “So when the press and the agents go after Ben, Jeff thinks Ben must be doing something right,” he says.

Besides, isn’t it obvious? It’s all Katherine Pope’s fault.

Kim Masters covers the business of entertainment for NPR News. She is the author of The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else.