Less than two months after being fired as NBC’s entertainment president, Kevin Reilly has been hired by Fox for the same job as part of a restructuring that includes the promotion of Peter Liguori to entertainment chairman.
Liguori, who has served as Fox’s entertainment president since 2005, and Reilly are being reunited: The two worked together from 2000 to 2003 at cable channel FX, which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
The changes were announced Monday by Peter Chernin, News Corp.’s president and chief operating officer.
In his job as chief programmer, Reilly will report to Liguori, whose new duties include developing ways to use Fox broadcast content across the Internet and other emerging digital platforms.
“We need to be structured in a way that puts us in the best position take advantage of the myriad new opportunities digital technology has afforded the broadcast television business,” Chernin said in a statement.
Liguori approached him with the idea of re-teaming with Reilly, Chernin said. He considered it a “bold move to redefine the structure of the network behind a pair of dynamic executives who have a proven track record of advancing the medium.”
As NBC’s chief programmer from 2004 until May, Reilly was in charge of a schedule that included freshman success “Heroes,” the Emmy-winning comedy “The Office” and the hit game show “Deal or No Deal.”
But the network fell to fourth place in the ratings and Reilly was replaced by the team of Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff. Silverman’s production company was responsible for “The Office” and the ABC hit “Ugly Betty,” while Graboff is a veteran TV executive concentrating primarily on the business side.
Reilly was ousted from NBC only three months after being given a new three-year contract.
NBC Universal had acted quickly because it was eager to bring on Silverman after he told NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker that he was thinking of selling his Reveille Productions.
At FX, where Liguori was president and CEO and Reilly was entertainment president, the pair helped build the channel with such critically acclaimed hits as “The Shield” and “Nip/Tuck.”
Before joining FX, Reilly was president of Brad Grey Television, where he supervised programs including the pilot for HBO’s “The Sopranos.”