Kevin Reilly is staying put at Fox, signing a new three-year deal to remain as head of scripted programming at the network.
Fox confirmed the news Thursday afternoon. It’s hardly a complete shocker, given the fact that Fox is a dominant No. 1 in the ratings and there had been no serious buzz about Reilly going anywhere.
Still, it’s a nice bit of reassurance for Reilly, the president of entertainment whose long-term job security could have been seen as somewhat at risk a year ago when Peter Rice was installed as his new boss (replacing the departed Peter Liguori). At the time, some industry cynics wondered if Rice might decide to keep Reilly around for a year, learn the ins and outs of the TV business — and then decide to dump Reilly.
Didn’t happen. (And we’re not saying it ever was going to happen– just that some industry types raised the possibility, which wasn’t particuarly far-fetched for Hollywood).
Instead, by all accounts, Rice and Reilly seem to have a good working relationship. Rice also has more on his plate these days, since he now also oversees FX, making Reilly’s role as head programmer something Rice doesn’t need to micromanage.
Reilly and his scripted team, led by deputy Matt Cherniss, have been having a good year thanks to the pop culture success of "Glee" and "The Cleveland Show."
So far at least, things are certainly going much more smoothly for Reilly at Fox than at NBC, where Reilly was let go shortly after signing… a new three-year deal.
News of Reilly’s completely expected re-upping was first reported by Deadline.com and confirmed by Fox reps minutes later.
