Silverman's summer do-over thoughts

TCA -- If he had to relaunch NBC’s "All-American Summer," NBC co-chair Ben Silverman says, he would have done a couple things differently.

“I would not have launched summer in mid-May,” Silverman says after his network's TCA executive session.

NBC premiered "American Gladiators” and "Last Comic Standing"  during the May sweep (and the horror anthology series "Fear Itself" starting during the first week of June) in an attempt to get a jump-start on summer competition.

“And I wouldn’t have allowed the Celtics to play the Lakers,” he semi-jokingly added.

NBC's top-rated summer series “America’s Got Talent” premiered opposite the NBA Finals, which Silverman acknowledged hurt the show. Silverman said the network was pulling for, say, Memphis to play instead.

Next summer, Silverman said he wants to have two original scripted series on the air. Given the deals NBC made with advertisers, he explained, a low-cost original summer show like “Fear Itself” pulling a 1.7 adults 18 to 49 rating can still be profitable for a network.

As for NBC’s most successful new summer show, “The Baby Borrowers,” Silverman says he’s going to wait to see how the remaining episodes play before making a decision on whether to pickup the series.