Who

Zalaznick is the chief of reality show-saturated cable channel Bravo as well as Oxygen, the female-friendly network NBC acquired in 2007.

Backstory

Brown grad Zalaznick spent her early career working in the film industry, linking up with indie queen Christine Vachon in the early 1990s to co-produce films like Todd Haynes' Poison and Safe and Larry Clark's Kids. She turned to TV and took a job as a programming exec at VH1, where she tried to make over the channel's stale, stuck-in-the-'80s image with new shows like Pop Up Video.

In 2002, USA Network's Michael R. Jackson hired Zalaznick to turn around underperforming cable channel Trio. She re-focused Trio on pop culture and revived faded TV favorites as part of the "Brilliant But Canceled" series. After the channel was sold to NBC Universal (along with the other cable properties in Barry Diller's USA portfolio), Zalaznick was tapped to oversee Bravo was well. In 2006, NBC chief Jeff Zucker decided to shutter Trio, but she remained at the company and continued to oversee Bravo. Her role expanded once again in 2007, after NBC negotiated the purchase of the Gerry Laybourne-led Oxygen Network. She now oversees both networks and reports to Jeff Gaspin, who looks after NBC Universal's portfolio of cable stations from Burbank.

Of note

A number of Bravo's hit shows (Queer Eye, Project Runway) pre-dated Zalaznick's arrival, but she's continued to rely on the format in recent years. She championed Top Chef, which has turned into one of Bravo's highest-rated programs and Work Out has performed nicely. She's also continued to bolster the Bravo's rep as a gay channel—even if it hasn't officially come out of the closet like Viacom's Logo—thanks to personalities like Tim Gunn, Jonathan Adler, Todd Oldham, Sally Hershberger, and Jackie Warner. In 2007, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style and Make Me a Supermodel were added to the line-up. But Zalaznick lost a major franchise in 2008 when Project Runway was ported to Lifetime by executive producer Harvey Weinstein.

A recent priority of Zalaznick's has been beefing up the network's online activities. Bravo took over Trio's websites after it was shuttered, sites like BrilliantButCancelled.com, GetTrio.com and the gay-themed site OutZoneTV.com, and Zalaznick later expanded the company's portfolio with the acquisition of snarky site TelevisionWithoutPity.com in 2007.

Personal

The silver-haired cable exec is married to Phelim Dolan. They have three children and live in the Village.