NBC is in fourth-place in the ratings. The network is praying series like "Heroes" return well in the fall after a nine-month hiatus imposed by the writers strike. Talks with the actors are at an impasse over digital revenues, and another strike is certainly possible.
Yet! NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman says his biggest disappointment in his first year on the job was--who knew?--the fate of Quarterlife, which was pulled after one episode and then sent Bravo as a Sunday morning fill-in. Silverman tells TV Week that his attempt to repurpose "Quarterlife" as stand-in strike programming will go down as his biggest failure/disappointment of the year:
I think that “Quarterlife” would be the biggest disappointment in that it just didn’t perform to even half the level I would have thought it would have. I don’t feel I would ever look back on it differently, because the whole thought process before it, behind it and around it was, “How do we get a scripted show when there’s a strike? How do we build something that’s potentially interactive? How do we gain a foothold in the digital content space and then hopefully it’s going to work also on-air?” Unfortunately, it didn’t perform.
To be fair, this was also one of Silverman's first programming decisions--and thus its failure felt more severely. And, Silverman does have some perspective; he does concede that the labor strife "made it the most difficult year to enter one of these jobs."
See Also: NBC: Nevermind 'Quarterlife,' We'll Still Try Web Shows
After Taking A Licking On Quarterlife, NBC Comes Back For More
Quarterlife: Not A Hit On Bravo, Either
Quarterlife Jumps To NBC, Bombs.
