NBC Promotes Two Women to Lead Scripted Programming

NBC is turning to its own bench to replace Jennifer Salke, who announced last week that she was leaving the network to run Amazon Studios.

The network said Thursday that Lisa Katz and Tracey Pakosta will become the co-presidents of scripted programming, and both will report to the NBC Entertainment chairman, Robert Greenblatt.

Katz has been running NBC’s drama department for the past 1 1/2 years. Before coming to NBC, Katz worked at Fox, where she helped develop “This Is Us” (Fox’s TV studio is the production house behind the current NBC hit) and “Empire.” Those are the two biggest dramas in broadcast television in the last three years.

Pakosta has been running the NBC comedy department since 2015. Pakosta, who had previously been working at NBC’s corporate cousin, Universal Television, helped develop NBC’s two biggest comedies at the moment, “The Good Place” and “Superstore.”

The two new executives join Paul Telegdy, the network’s reality television chief, in NBC’s entertainment leadership structure. Telegdy and Salke were Greenblatt’s key lieutenants in leading NBC’s surprising turnaround from a moribund network to No. 1 in the ratings.