• NBC's entertainment chief, Robert Greenblatt, announced Monday that he was stepping down from the company after almost eight years in charge, the latest change at the highest ranks of the major broadcast networks. Greenblatt, who took over when the network's prime-time viewership was in the gutter, has been responsible for a significant turnaround effort. NBC finished the past television season No. 1 in the ratings for the fourth time in five seasons. Greenblatt's last day was Monday, the same day the 2018-19 television season began. He will be replaced by two people: Paul Telegdy, a president and the head of reality programming at NBC, and George Cheeks, who is seen as a rising star in the company. They take over today. The upheaval at the top levels of the broadcast networks is happening for a variety of reasons. A sexual-harassment scandal ended Leslie Moonves' tenure at CBS, and Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox is leading to churn at ABC and Fox. But the networks are also dealing with the same problems: a declining number of viewers and a diminished influence in the era of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. Greenblatt, 58, said his decision was some time in the making. "You do get weary in these jobs," he said in an interview. "With the daily changes that go on, you're constantly reconfiguring the business. I'm just really excited about doing something. Whatever I do will be some new challenge. These jobs are really relentless."
• After spearheading an 18-hour documentary on the Vietnam War, filmmaker Ken Burns has turned to more personal subject matter. Burns tackles the Mayo Clinic in his next film, exploring the history of the innovative Rochester, Minn.-based hospital that has been dubbed "The Miracle in a Cornfield." It has treated luminaries such as the Dalai Lama -- and Burns. The first time Burns went to the hospital, he said, he was immediately impressed by the level and detail of his medical care. "I began to get curious about why this was so different from any other health care experience I'd had," he said. The result is the two-hour documentary The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science, which starts with the hospital's birth during a tornado in 1883 and ends with the modern-day Mayo, featuring state-of-the-art facilities on several campuses. "The Mayo is just a quintessentially American story, just as baseball is a quintessentially American subject, as are the national parks, the Civil War," Burns said. "And this was a story firing on all cylinders, at least as far as I felt."
A Section on 09/25/2018