• by Wayne Friedman , July 10, 2007

Given a free shot in adding to its executive ranks, Fox Broadcasting has hired recently exiled NBC executive Kevin Reilly as president of Fox Entertainment--and at the same time, promoted Peter Liguori to chairman of Fox Entertainment.

Liguori had been Reilly's boss when the two worked at News Corp. cable network FX from 2000 to 2003. At FX, Liguori was president/CEO and Reilly was president of entertainment.

Reilly was ousted last month as president of NBC Entertainment in a bit of unusual timing--just after presenting NBC's fall upfront programming schedule. This resulted starting when highly regarded producer Ben Silverman was looking to strike a new deal outside of the ranks of the NBC Universal family. As a result, Silverman became co-chairman of NBC Entertainment last month.

More unusual still is Reilly's quick move to Fox.

Typically, TV and other executives have "non-compete" clauses in their contracts, which forbid them to work for a competitor for a set period of time. It is not known whether Reilly had a non-compete clause or if it was dropped in its exit package from NBC. An NBC spokeswoman could not comment at press time.

Reilly will now take over Liguori's post as president of entertainment, while Liguori will focus on developing new models for Fox' broadcast content, looking to leverage its shows across all emerging video platforms. Liguori had been president of Fox Entertainment for two and a half years. For the last two seasons, the network has finished first among the 18-49 demo--of key importance to advertisers.

While Reilly has been highly criticized for being unable to pull NBC out of its fourth-place spot over the past couple of seasons, he did launch last season's NBC hit "Heroes," the best-rated of all new broadcast network shows last season. He also started up sturdy NBC programming: "The Office", "My Name is Earl" and "Deal or No Deal."

Critics and NBC insiders say Reilly's vision is too dark and serious. Dramas like "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "The Black Donnellys" failed to get big, diverse audiences.

Previous to Fox and FX, Liguori had senior marketing and advertising posts, heading up consumer marketing at HBO, as well as working for ad agencies Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi.