Bob Greenblatt resigns as president of NBC Entertainment – Variety



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Bob Greenblatt is preparing to step down as president of NBC Entertainment after leading the turnaround of the network over the past eight years.

Greenblatt, which renewed its contract with NBC last fall, is negotiating its exit plan at NBC after deciding that the time has come for it to make the transition, said several sources close to the situation. Variety. He is expected to meet this weekend with NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke to develop an exit plan that would give NBC a long way to create a successor. His official start could be as late as the end of the 2018-19 season in May.

At NBC, Greenblatt achieved an impressive rebound for the network after years spent in the rating cellar. NBC has done particularly well over the last two years thanks to the success of "This Is Us". Under Greenblatt's leadership, NBC has completed four of the past five seasons as a primetime network in the 18-49 demo. NBC also finished the 2017-2018 52-week season as the # 1 network in almost every scoring measure, including the total number of viewers – the first time since 2001-2002 that NBC has won the overall title.

He understood that Greenblatt saw the winners viewers as a milestone that was a good account book for his NBC race.

Greenblatt joined NBC in 2011, just as Comcast completed its acquisition of NBCUniversal and months before the network launched what would quickly become the most-rated unwritten series of broadcast, "The Voice." best-rated drama to broadcast. Greenblatt attracted the creators and actors of the comedy "Will & Grace" on the network last year for a revival that proved a success. The show has already been renewed for 2019-2020, before its first 2018-19. NBC also scored a critical favorite with the comedy "The Good Place", which won an Emmy nomination for star Ted Danson in its second season.

Greenblatt's mandate is also underlined by the revival of the annual live music show, which he defended from the success of "The Sound of Music Live" in December 2013. NBC's competitors followed their own productions, notably Fox. a presentation of "Rent" on January 27th. NBC has just won five Emmy Grand Prizes for its latest production, "Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert", starring John Legend.

Among the leaders of the Big Four broadcast networks, Greenblatt is the oldest, with seven years at the helm. A veteran of cable and television broadcasting, he was recruited by Showtime following a series of seven successful years in which he launched his series of original programs with dramas such as "Dexter", "Nurse Jackie" and "Californication".

Greenblatt has also long been active as a producer of Broadway and other theaters, something that he could well pursue after leaving NBC. He was part of Tony's award-winning musical "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" and performed "9 to 5" in Broadway's musical performance at Showtime.

Before Showtime, Greenblatt had a production partnership with David Janollari who gave the HBO show "Six Feet Under", winner of Emmy. Earlier in his career, Greenblatt was one of the first members of Fox Broadcasting's programming.

Upon arrival in 2011, Greenblatt recruited Jennifer Salke, executive of 20th Century Fox Television, to lead NBC's scripted development. The network was then successful with dramas such as "The Blacklist" and "Blindspot", as well as Dick Wolf's "Chicago Fire" and its ramifications. Salke left NBC earlier this year to become head of the Amazon studios. This transition would also have weighed on Greenblatt's decision, as he and Salke worked closely together for years.

The departure of Greenblatt adds to the turmoil of the current four major broadcast networks, with Fox and ABC leading the major upheavals resulting from Disney's historic acquisition of 21st Century Fox's assets. CBS also came under pressure as part of the corporate drama that surrounded the company and led to the collapse of CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves earlier this month.

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