• by Wayne Friedman , December 4, 2006

Politics and sales makes for strange bedfellows. In the wake of Keith Turner's sales exit, NBC Universal Television will hand over its TV advertising selling reins to an outsider with no TV sales experience. Mike Pilot, who has been president of the commercial-finance division at General Electric, according to executives close to the company, will step into Turner's role.

It is not known what exact title Pilot will carry. But he will take over the ad responsibilities of Keith Turner, who was president of advertising sales at NBC Universal Television Group, and that of Turner's former boss Randy Falco, who was president/COO of the NBC Television Group.

Turner held the top sales executive advertising spot at the NBC network for eight years. NBC confirmed on Friday that he would be leaving--but would not comment on Pilot's promotion.

Senior NBC ad executives Marianne Gambelli, executive vice president of advertising sales and marketing, and Jim Hoffman, senior vice president of advertising sales and marketing, will report to Pilot, according to sources.

The decision to entrust an outsider came from high atop General Electric. "It really has to do with the bigger General Electric picture," says one executive close to the company.

Executives say GE chairman/CEO Jeffrey Immelt put Pilot in the spot as a backup, of sorts, to Jeff Zucker, chairman/CEO of NBC Television Group.

NBC didn't disclose where Turner would be going. But speculation has it that he could move to AOL to join Falco, or go to the NFL Network. Turner spent a long period of his career at NBC selling sports.

Media-buying executives say Bob Wright, chairman of NBC Universal, probably didn't have much say in the decision to hire Pilot--since it's assumed that he will soon be retiring. Zucker is expected to take Wright's job.

While the decision to hire a non-TV sales executive seems odd, it does play into Wright's new vision for the company--which has less to do with traditional TV and more with digital-video distribution businesses.

"It's not just about TV anymore," said Doug Seay, former Starcom Media executive, now a senior advertising sales executive for Eclipse Television. "All this is about a much wider perspective, moving away from the old media stuff. The new person will have the big vision."

To anyone's memory, it's the first time a non-TV executive came on board to head up an advertising sales division at a broadcast network. Cable networks, however, have hired a number of consultants and other executives to top advertising sales positions.

Executives note that this is GE's way. Wright came into NBC as an outsider. He served as president of General Electric Financial Services, and before that, as president of Cox Cable Communications. Pilot has also worked at a number of GE financial positions. Turner, who started with the network in 1987, presided over a bone-crushing upfront in 2005, when the network took a massive $800 million drop in revenues, versus the 2004 upfront. NBC landed at some $1.9 billion for the 2005 upfront period.

But executives say, to Turner's credit, he read the situation correctly in 2005, and asked his superiors at General Electric to allow him to cut NBC's pricey CPM rate. GE executives rebuffed him. Instead of NBC taking a minor hit under Turner's plan, the network suffered a nearly $1 billion ad revenue drop.

This past upfront NBC fared somewhat better, with the 2005 experience under its belt. NBC moved more quickly, and benefited from industry-leader ABC's hesitancy. ABC held to the position that it wanted to make deals with TV advertisers for not just live ratings, but for DVR playback ratings as well.

Still, NBC lost the top position as the leader in CPMs among 18-49 viewers. That title shifted to Fox this past year.

Recently, a number of high-ranking executives have left NBC Universal: Randy Falco, president/COO of NBC Universal Television Group, was named chairman/CEO of AOL; and David Zaslav, president of NBC Universal Cable and Domestic TV and New Media Distribution, became president/CEO of Discovery Communications.