The Times has a longish article on the fall of NBC in the Sunday paper: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/media/17nbc.html? I paste a few passages at the end.
Basically, they (NBC, not its corporate parent) went from generating more than 1 Billion dollars of profit less than a decade ago to losing 100 million this year (that's from the Olympics, as if that doesn't count. Last year they made a couple of million). Zucker has survived (so far, he may not last far into the Comcast era) because he has made money with the cable operations. This seems to be why he hasn't cared much about developing programs for the broadcast network, and why he was so happy to piss away almost a third of its time slots. This is a guy who was put in charge of the Louvre and figured he could make more money turning the paintings around to sell advertising space on the backs, and rent out the halls for flea markets. Even old Fred Silverman blasts him for turning his back on the basics of running a network - which is developing popular programs. Zuck appears to think he is a stand up guy because he takes the blame for the 10:00 Leno Experiment (finally admitting that it was a failure without repeating his mantra "it performed exactly as we expected it would"). Since everybody knows this, it does not count for much. More revealing is how he throws Gaspin under the bus for the Conan at 12:05 idea. Nicely, Gaspin gets some revenge (perhaps unintentionally) by giving the NYT a quote that: “I’m not trying to reinvent right now, I’m really going back to basics.” - meaning he is going back to developing pilots, even though The Zucker had earlier exclaimed, with some pride, that the reason he gets blamed for everything is that he has the balls to try new things and take chances. The parallels to the Katiecast are so strong that I conclude it is not a coincidence, and reflects Zuckers influence on her. When she went to CBS News and made a big deal about reinventing the Evening News because it was a dead or dying format, and then fell flat on her face, she went through a period of blaming the masses for not being able to handle her cutting edginess and new freshness (and her extra X chromosome). Then she dropped all the new fangled stuff and went back to doing an evening news broadcast, and things got a lot better. I expect Gaspin to go back to developing programs, doing okay, and that things will actually get better at NBC in 2 or 3 years. ********** "By the time G.E. finally decided to wash its hands of NBC late last year, the network ranked low on the list of those parts of the company most valuable to Comcast, which will swallow the network mainly so it can acquire the company’s money-making cable channels, like USA, Bravo, Syfy. Indeed, even though NBC’s news division remains highly profitable, the network’s overall finances are crumbling — less than a decade ago, according to Bob Wright, the former chief executive of NBC Universal, the network generated over $1 billion in profit for its parent, G.E. This year, mainly because of high costs associated with broadcasting next month’s Winter Olympics, the network is expected to lose more than $100 million, according to a person briefed on the network’s finances who insisted on anonymity. The company does not break out financial figures for the network. (In 2009, the network made a few hundred million dollars, and represented about 10 percent of NBC Universal’s operating profit.) All of the networks are dealing with economic pressures, but NBC’s competitors have proved more deft at managing the challenges and creating hits, even as their profits have declined. (SNIP) “At the end of the day Jay at 10 o’clock didn’t work,” Mr. Zucker said, “and I take responsibility for that.” Mr. Zucker said that it was during a phone call in the first week of January from Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal’s head of entertainment, that he learned that the network’s affiliates were threatening to pre-empt the Leno show. “It was becoming tough to deal with,” Mr. Zucker said. “The pressure from the affiliate body was strong.” Mr. Gaspin’s idea was to move Mr. O’Brien’s show to 12:05 a.m., and give Mr. Leno a half-hour show at 11:35 p.m. “That’s what he wanted to do, and I said, O.K., give it a shot,” Mr. Zucker said. The shot exploded in their faces. “At the end of the day Jay at 10 o’clock didn’t work,” Mr. Zucker said, “and I take responsibility for that.” (SNIP) Mr. [Jeff] Gaspin’s idea was to move Mr. O’Brien’s show to 12:05 a.m., and give Mr. Leno a half-hour show at 11:35 p.m. “That’s what he wanted to do, and I said, O.K., give it a shot,” Mr. Zucker said. The shot exploded in their faces. In prime time, the story of the last decade has been NBC’s inability to create any big hits to replace those of its late-1990s glory years — especially “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “E.R.” This period has coincided with the rise of Mr. Zucker, who in 2000 was promoted from executive producer of “Today” to entertainment chief for the entire network. Some of its recent shows, like “The Office” and “30 Rock,” are critical successes but garner only relatively small audiences. NBC’s prime-time schedule started to slip before Mr. Zucker took over, Mr. Silverman noted. “But what could have fixed it was not a lot of tricks,” said Mr. Silverman, mentioning some of Mr. Zucker’s moves, like expanding “Friends” to about 40 minutes. “What could have reduced the downward trend was a couple of hit shows.” NBC’s financial and ratings slide has been overshadowed by the corporate universe in which it resides: the profit-generating capacity of its sister cable channels has allowed Mr. Zucker to claim success even as the network has floundered. (SNIP) “I think part of why there’s been such a visceral reaction to this is we’ve talked about change and taking risks, and that’s something I’ve always been associated with,” Mr. Zucker said. “And not being afraid to take chances.” (SNIP) To fix the prime-time woes, NBC, under Mr. Gaspin, plans to spend more on development. It has deals with producers like J. J. Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer and Brian Grazer. It made 11 pilots last year and plans to increase that number to 20 this year. “I’m not trying to reinvent right now,” Mr. Gaspin said. “I’m really going back to basics.”
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