NBC boss: We’re not to blame for launching Trump’s candidacy

“Fox has unfortunately lost 43 percent of its audience”. It was the penultimate question, and Greenblatt had to ask the reporter to take another stab at the question, owing to its circuitousness. “You get that huge Olympics platform, but at the end of those 17 days, there’s a bit of viewer fatigue”, he said. “We’re in that phase of taking a step back and doing a postmortem”.

“I think it’s surprised all of us that he would want to do this, but I guess that’s what’s great about this country”, Greenblatt added. He wants to reverse that trend with the addition of coaches Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys this fall. But Blake Shelton and Adam Levine will remain constants. It isn’t probably as big a title as Lethal Weapon, but they still love the show. “If I can compare it to a scripted show, you have your series regulars that you love… and then we have this revolving family”. But they really have to be special.

And, in perhaps the only tense moment of the 50-minute meeting with critics and reporters, Greenblatt was asked (in so many words) to address TV’s culpability in creating Trump and this unprecedented presidential race.

“Greenblatt likened Trump’s successful run on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” to how Ronald Reagan’s movie career served as a useful prelude to his own second act in politics: “‘Bedtime for Bonzo” helped make Reagan a national prominent figure”, Greenblatt said.

“Oh, I couldn’t answer that”, Greenblatt said.

“We are happy to have a show that was doing really well with a guy that was a big TV star”. “It’s impossible to figure out where he goes from there”.

NBC will have four “Chicago” crime dramas on the air this coming season – and network president Bob Greenblatt doesn’t necessarily rule out more. “Every time I think [producer] Dick Wolf has finished what he started, he comes up with a good idea”, he said.

The challenge, he said, will be to come up with something that doesn’t take away from cable companies like its parent company, Comcast. “We spend a lot of time talking about what we’re going to do in the space”. “We’re not involved in his life and we’ll evaluate these things as they come up in the future”.