Reilly lands with a winner

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It didn't take long for Kevin Reilly to land on his feet. Fired just weeks ago as president of NBC Entertainment, Reilly is now the president of Fox Entertainment.

This should be fun. Those of us gathered here for the Television Critics Association summer press tour can grill Reilly about two networks' fall schedules at the same time. Of course, he's responsible for what will be on NBC this fall; he had nothing to do with what will be on Fox.

Reilly replaces Peter Liguori, who has been promoted to chairman of Fox Entertainment. It's a reunion of sorts — from 2000-03, Liguori was president and CEO of FX, and Reilly was president of entertainment for the cable network.

"I'm thrilled to be working with my good friend Kevin again. We have complementary strengths, but more importantly, we have fun working together and we enjoy sharing that spirit with the rest of the team," Liguori said in a statement. (For me, this is very disconcerting. Fox is now being run by not one, but two executives I like. I don't think that's ever happened before.)

There so much irony involved in Reilly's hiring that it's difficult to know where to start. It's sort of like getting fired as the manager of the last-place Tampa Bay Devil Rays (19 games out as I write this), and, a few weeks later, getting hired to manage the Boston Red Sox (leading their division by 10 games) — and getting a shot at winning the World Series.

There aren't a whole lot of businesses in which you can get the boot and end up running one of the companies that your former employer is losing to.

The general consensus is that Reilly got a raw deal at NBC. He was trying to clean up the mess left by his predecessors, who let the longtime prime-time leader's ratings erode because they couldn't program a hit for years on end. And it's certainly ironic, to say the very least, that Reilly was fired by NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker, whose own tenure as president of NBC Entertainment was an unmitigated failure. (Let's see, Reilly did a better job than Zucker. Reilly got fired. Zucker got promoted. Hmmmm. ...)

On the other hand ... NBC's fall lineup is, well, underwhelming at best. There are a couple of promising shows (such as "Chuck" and "Bionic Woman"), but even those are somewhat iffy propositions. And the other shows Reilly put on the schedule are iffier still.

It will be sort of interesting to watch Reilly program against the shows he's put on the air at NBC.