Most of the credit for those numbers goes to Jeffrey Gaspin, 47, the boyish-looking head of all the company's entertainment cable channels--USA Network, Bravo, Sci Fi and Oxygen.

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Of course, the results were driven largely by the unit's cable channels--USA Network, Bravo, Sci Fi, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen and The Weather Channel--and the Summer Olympics, which aired across its network stable.

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She's co-starring with Samuel L. Jackson in the feature thriller "Reasonable Doubt, " will be appearing with Geena Davis in a comedy pilot for TNT, and has a recurring role during the third season of that network's sci-fi series "Falling Skies, " a gig that reunites her with "ER" alum Noah Wyle.

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Silverman's two-year tenure, while Gaspin's entertainment cable empire--including top-rated USA Network, Bravo, Oxygen and Sci Fi--has seen ratings and revenue soar.

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Basically all the things that sci-fi movies from two decades ago imagined a global network could do, the Internet does.

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Among the perks of doing it at HBO, they say, was the ability to explore the sci-fi genre in the way other series on the network have done the cop and mob genres.

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His credits include the short-lived but ambitious sci-fi thriller "FlashForward, " which prematurely fell prey to meddling by its network, ABC.

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While running the now-defunct WB network, which he left in 2004, he commissioned a show called Global Frequency, a sci-fi adventure about a secretive global organization.

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