Will Somebody Please Save NBC?

[TMC1982]

Why NBC Deserves Better Than Jeff Zucker, Jay Leno, and Comcast -- New York Magazine

It’s easy to enumerate how dire things are for the network: The fourth-place finishes, night after night, in both total viewers and the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that still serves as TV’s gold standard. The absence—for the third year running—of any new hit show. (For the week ending November 1, NBC placed exactly one series in the top 30.) The continued attrition of the network’s Thursday-night lineup, which throughout the eighties and nineties was the bedrock of both NBC’s wide appeal and its yearly Emmy tally and now has only The Office and 30 Rock keeping that old tradition-of-quality candle burning. And the fact that the network’s one big prime-time ratings success—Sunday Night Football—goes off the air in early January, making the season’s second half, particularly after the Winter Olympics, even bleaker.

NBC’s latest Dark Age began a few years ago, but worsened last December, when Zucker, who has run or overseen the network’s entertainment programming since 2000, announced that Jay Leno, the departing host of the Tonight Show, who was grumbling about handing the reins over to Conan O’Brien, had won a whopper of a consolation prize: five hours of prime time a week. Good-bye, five scripted dramas. Hello, one cheap-to-make replacement that, for all the promises about new concepts and creative rejuvenation, would end up being a bland clone of Leno’s Tonight Show, when it arrived ten months later. Zucker hung tough when his decision was trashed by TV writers angry that a talk show was going to put many of them out of work, and critics who, noting that Leno’s late-night run had not been distinguished by a whole lot of innovation, saw the move as a statement: We’re not even going to pretend we’re trying anymore.

Zucker saw it as a statement as well: This is a business, and we’re in it to make money. Phrases like “managing for margins” (meaning “We don’t care if fewer people watch as long as we make a profit”) were incanted as new gospel. When critics carped, he shrugged; when the head of the network’s Boston affiliate threatened not to air the show, NBC slapped him back in line. Leno, Zucker explained, would provide 92 weeks of original programming over two years for a small fraction of what it costs to produce and license scripted dramas. Preemptively redefining success downward, NBC let it be known that a barely detectable 1.5 rating among 18-to-49-year-olds (meaning consistent last-place finishes) would be an occasion for boardroom high fives.

Why NBC Deserves Better Than Jeff Zucker, Jay Leno, and Comcast -- New York Magazine

Why NBC Deserves Better Than Jeff Zucker, Jay Leno, and Comcast -- New York Magazine

 

[bicker]

Comcast will be a great home for NBC Universal, especially its cable networks. I'm sure I have both GE and Comcast stock somewhere in my 401(k), and I'm greatly encouraged by the prospect of this deal moving forward. I think the writer of the article is thinking solely as a viewer, and couldn't care less for the people who actually risk their hard-earned money on, and place the hope of their financial future into, NBC Universal.

 

[SamCdbs]

Devistating and accurate article, and thank you for sharing it here.

GE has esentually made NBC into the largest netlet. It belongs in a class with CW, MY and such, not CBS, Fox, and ABC.

But Comcast is not the solution. Comcast IS the company they are making fun of in those boardroom commercials for DirecTV. The Comcast business plan is provide as little as possible for the highest price, while lobbying politicians for laws to maximize profits at the expense of the customer's interest. Which is why it had, in 2007, the lowest customer service satisfaction rating in the nation, company or government agency.

Comcast will continue GE's model of running NBC as a netlet, and of making MSNBC the #3 player in a 2 player market, aiming for that niche of, well, conspiracy theorists and other crazies, and letting CNBC go fallow as the contract with the WSJ expires and moves to Fox Business. And add its own business model of attempting to finagle all of its channels off the dishes, so it will have something else to say other than "we're totally inferior".

I still look for 20 plus affiliates to dump NBC within the next 10 years. NBC is going to be on the weakest station in town, everywhere.

 

[bicker]

And soon ABC will become a "netlet", and then CBS will become one.

Comcast is the best avenue to avoid what you're concerned about.

 

[mike123abc]

Of course the rumor is that Comcast is going to break NBC out and sell it off, keeping just the cable networks. I guess it will be just Universal after that.

 

[Pepper]

Jay Leno said it best. Comcast wants to buy NBC because they [Comcast] have decided to get out of the TV business.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Comcast wants NBCU for their programming and made-for-TV movie library, to offer that to customers via VOD. Comcast could care less about original programming. So, by the time Comcast gets done (and watch carefully, folks), USA, SyFy, MSNBC, CNBC, UHD and NBC will, essentially be nothing more than mini VOD service for Comcast.

The Peacock is losing it's feathers and Leno knows it because he summed it up quite well.

Zucker and Immelt have killed the once proud bird.

 

[riffjim4069]

The really sad part is that NBC could buy the rights to the Top 10 shows on television right now and nobody would watch them since folks have removed NBC from their favorites or just stopped watching this network period. Assuming NBC were to immediately start spending money on their television production like Steinbrenner spends on the New York Yankees...it's still going to take two-years before anyone takes notice.

Anyway, perhaps NBC will beef up their fall lineup with two-hours of The Biggest Loser from 8-10pm, Monday-Friday, follow by Leno in the 10pm slot.

Monday: 8-10pm - The Biggest Loser
Monday: 10pm - Leno makes jokes about NBC and its biggest losers (network execs)

Tuesday: 8-10pm - The Biggest Loser - Couples Edition
Tuesday: 10pm - Leno makes jokes about NBC and Biggest Couples

Wednesday: 8-10pm - Biggest Loser - Family Version
Wednesday: 10pm - Leno doing what he does best

Thursday: 8-10pm - Biggest Loser - All My Fat Children
Thursday: 10pm - Leno busts NBC's chops and runs over biggest loser candidates as they try to evade his green vehicle

Friday: 8-10pm - Best of Biggest Losers (heck, this is even cheaper to produce than a recorded show)
Friday: 10pm - Best of Leno...perhaps starving biggest loser candidates can chase Jay while he tries to evade them while driving the Weiner Mobile.

 

[davidpo]

I truly hope the FCC doesnt allow comcast to buy NBC.

 

[riffjim4069]

I truly hope the FCC doesnt allow comcast to buy NBC.

I do too...they'll shutdown the local broadcasters and make it a cable channel.

 

[bicker]

Actually, at this point, it's not really in the FCC purview. There is no foundation for not granting a change in license. Rather, it is only a matter for Justice to determine if there is an anti-trust concern. The chances of the deal not going through is pretty minuscule, at this point. There will be restrictions and conditions on the deal. The restrictions and conditions -- that's the context of the discussion at this point, not whether the deal will go through or not.