LIKE MOTHER, LIKE SON ? AND MADE FOR TV

BY SHIRLEY BRADY

How did Ben Silverman, the 33-year-old producer of NBC's steamy new series Coupling and USA's House Wars (which premieres tonight) and Nashville Star, learn the ropes?

From his mom, of course.

Court TV's SVP of programming Mary D. Silverman is more than a little responsible for her ambitious whiz kid. Hauling home scripts, treatments and the trades over the years ? starting two decades ago at the USA Network ? Silverman found an unexpected sounding board in her son.

?There was a lot of homework and a lot of bringing stuff home to read when I was at USA in the early days,? says the theatrical producer turned cable programmer. ?I had to watch everything, read everything and know what was going on, and Ben had a mind for culture, particularly popular culture. At 7 or 8 he was interested in the business aspect of television and he was fun to talk to about all this. He'd watch things with me and critique them in the same kind of way I was watching them.?

The upshot: He was hooked. Before graduating magna cum laude with a B.A. in history from Tufts University, he'd interned for Warner Bros. Domestic Television and spent a year in their Paris office. He zipped through CBS, heading up development for producer Barbara Corday, then followed her to New World Entertainment where ?televisionary? Brandon Tartikoff spotted a kindred TV savant in Ben.

He was tapped in 1995 by the William Morris Agency to run its international packaging division in the U.K. ? a market Silverman knew well from his mom's pre-Court TV five-year stint heading up international coproductions for the BBC. He carved a niche exporting British formats, licensing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Weakest Link, Dog Eats Dog and Queer as Folk for the U.S. before moving back and launching his own shop, Reveille.

Fast-forward to today, where as part of the Universal Television Group Silverman works closely with USA Networks president Doug Herzog (who calls him ?fearless?) and Sci Fi (where he is developing Marvel Comics-based ideas). He also produced The Restaurant for NBC (now in reruns on Bravo) and is even developing a show for mom.

So what is Ben's unscripted, entertainment-meets-investigation concept for Court TV? Silverman mere et fils are ? what else? ? keeping mum.