Liguori May Take Over for Berman

By Scott Collins and Maria Elena Fernandez

March 24, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

The boss of Fox Broadcasting Co. is leaving just as the network is at the top of the ratings game.

As her successor will almost certainly learn, News Corp. billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s television network has more ups and downs than an “American Idol” contestant.

News Corp. President Peter Chernin hasn’t indicated who will replace Gail Berman, who in her five-year tenure as Fox Broadcasting’s president helped develop hits like “24” and “The O.C.”

She will soon become an executive at Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, sources said Wednesday, and Chernin most likely won’t make an announcement until Viacom announces that Berman has been hired.

But Peter Liguori, who has presided over a programming renaissance at FX Networks with “The Shield,” “Nip/Tuck” and other series, is expected to be Chernin’s choice, according to sources inside the company.

Late Wednesday, Dana Walden, who runs Fox’s network studio division, and Angela Shapiro, president of Fox Television Studios, remained dark-horse candidates.

Because Berman’s Paramount deal was evidently not wrapped up and the situation was still in flux, few people were willing to speak on the record. Berman and the other principals declined to comment, as did spokespeople for the networks and studios involved.

The network is likely to fill the post quickly, in part because Fox must present its fall schedule to advertisers in just two months. The network has already ordered 13 comedy and 11 drama pilots for next season and should be able to cement the schedule fairly easily, observers said.

Chernin, who was Fox’s top programmer when Barry Diller ran the so-called fourth network in the early 1990s, has always been heavily involved in the scheduling process.

“There will be continuity,” said Sandy Grushow, a former Fox chairman, “given Peter Chernin’s prior involvement in the pilot selection process as well as his previous experience in actually doing Gail’s job.” Grushow’s company, Phase Two Productions, is creating a Fox sitcom pilot, “Don’t Ask.”

Whoever gets the Fox job will inherit a network seemingly at the peak of its power.

In February, thanks in large part to the Super Bowl, the network won the “sweep” period -- which helps determine ad rates for local stations -- among both young adults and total viewers. “American Idol” remains a ratings goliath, and the new medical drama “House” was last week’s No. 4-rated program, according to Nielsen Media Research.

But if Fox currently is enjoying dazzling heights, it has also known the darkest depths, often within the same season. As recently as four months ago, the network was mired in fourth place, as reality series such as “Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best” bombed. The dive was reversed in January with the return of “American Idol” for a fourth season.

That volatility takes a toll, as Berman conceded in a recent interview with The Times.

“We know historically that Fox is a January network and that it rebounds very well in January,” she said. “But in this kind of position, you never get used to that because it’s not acceptable. When you’re feeling despair in November, it’s very hard to look out to January.”

Of course, Fox’s rivals are buffeted by many of the same ratings storms. But some problems are unique to Murdoch’s network.

Fox’s commitments to run post-season baseball have hampered any efforts to launch new series in the fall, when viewers are primed to expect them. And Fox has developed a pattern of relying too heavily on unscripted shows to rescue its fortunes when dramas and comedies don’t pan out.

“They’ve always been a schizophrenic network, with crass reality shows and high-quality scripted shows,” said one studio executive who has done business with Fox. “Some of the troubles they had this fall were because they went too far into third-level reality shows.” Berman found herself on the defensive last summer when competitors angrily accused Fox of ripping off ideas for reality series.

Many credit Berman for trying to work around the handicaps faced by Fox. She’s known for cultivating close relationships with producers and also instituting an innovative “year-round schedule” that could eventually help the network break the traditional September-May television season.

“Some of their shows are not the classiest, but when you look at ‘House’ and ‘Arrested Development’ and ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘24,’ those are quality shows,” said Paul Attanasio, executive producer of “House.” “Gail has a lot to do with that. It’s almost like there’s two Foxes. There’s the ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Fox, and then there’s the network that has these four scripted shows that nobody else has.”

Under Berman’s watch, Fox has had trouble finding scripted series that can work for Fox. Among the high-profile misfires: “Skin,” “North Shore,” “Girls Club,” and “Andy Richter Controls the Universe.”

With Fox now pursuing a year-round schedule, the successor will soon have the chance to make a mark on the network’s programming.

Insiders believe that once Viacom announces Berman’s hiring, the succession issue at Fox will be resolved very quickly, perhaps as soon as today.

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.