Kim Masters Treads Kindly When Discussing NBC’s Future

Kim Masters can pull off a hit job with a quick toss of her long brown locks. But her power is so great, so unruly, she must keep it under control in times like these — times when the urge to hunt down NBC’s peacock, shoot a bow through its neck, grill it in the background, and dive into it with steak knives sounds oh so appealing.

But that would be for amateurs. Byline-everywhere and NPR host Masters, however, knows how to keep her awesome power cooled. Especially when she’s talking about NBC great white hope Ben Silverman.

But, thankfully for us, not when she’s discussing NBC chiefton Jeff Zucker. With him? It’s a bloodbath.

Writing in Slate, Masters only goes this far with Silverman:

Since Silverman produced The Office in addition to the well-received Ugly Betty, it may seem counterintuitive and wrong to perceive him as a monger of schlock. But he bears several traits that those who dream of quality television find worrisome. One is his penchant for so-called reality shows (he helped bring Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? to the United States and produced The Biggest Loser, among others). He’s also shrewdly capitalized on integrating advertising into programming (e.g., a Chili’s deal with The Office), which worries those who feel that creativity is likely to suffer when advertisers gain even more influence than they already have.

As for Zucker:

It’s not necessarily that people are rooting for Silverman personally to fail. But they do want Jeff Zucker, who hired him, to fail. Zucker has long been seen as a man who has triumphed despite his mistakes, suggesting that the laws of gravity are really only guidelines. In this instance, he is blamed for screwing Kevin Reilly, the NBC entertainment president who lost his job in the shake-up. (Note that Reilly helped Silverman overcome the taint of the spectacularly bad British import Coupling by championing The Office when it was on the brink of cancellation. But, as the saying goes, it’s not personal, Kevin???it’s just business.) In the minds of Zucker’s enemies, the NBC Universal chairman shivved Reilly for his own failings in order to chase heat without having any better plan than he had before.

“Shivved Reilly”? Oh, that’s the good stuff. We’re gonna let that one go straight to the brain for that awesome tingle.