NBC Gives up "We'll Never be #1" (1 Viewer)

[AnthonyC]

Looks like NBC has another dud on their hands with Parks & Recreation. Ben Silverman: "All of the research we do around initial rough cuts is negative. If you had seen the initial research on all of ours and our competitors' successful shows, it tends to be like that."

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

According to Variety, NBC Universal's profits plunged 45 percent, even while GE's overall profits were up one percent:NBC Universal profits down 45%Parent company GE gains 1% to close at $12.39 By DADE HAYESElton John's Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends.Will Clark is set to direct "Pride and Predator," which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

Shooting will begin in London later this year. John exec produces, and his Rocket partners Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish are producing.

NBC Universal reported a quarterly operating profit plunge of 45% even as parent GE was posting better-than-expected results Friday and buoying Wall Street's spirits.GE shares gained 1% to close at $12.39 after the massive conglom reported net income of $2.74 billion, down 36% from $4.3 billion in the year-ago period. That was still better than most analysts expected from the battered company, whose key GE Capital unit has been a cancer over the past several months. The finance unit's profits slumped 58% to $1.12 billion.

Revenue dropped 9% to $38.4 billion.

GE chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt said in a statement, "While cable continued to deliver double-digit growth, NBC Universal had a tougher performance overall due to a soft advertising market and fewer major DVD releases compared to a year ago."

NBCU topper [/b]:zodInfuser.FillDescriptions(]Jeff Zucker blamed the profit dip on several factors, contending it had "nothing to do with the strength of our operations." Zucker said profits would have fallen 15%, in line with forecasts, without one-time charges.

How does he keep his job?

 

[mattCR]

This is morbidly funny.

 

[celica]

what? i'm watching either..

 

[Tom Keels]

I think MILF Island is still a viable property.

This is all reading like a 30 Rock episode, which is both funny and sad at the same time.

 

[TravisR]

It's already on TV Land under the name 'The Cougar'.

 

[drobbins]

While I do not watch much on NBC but, I do watch the Weather Channel that NBC bought last summer. I have noticed that it has gone down in programming quality since then. I think they spend more time advertising their own programming and telling previews of whats coming up than they do talking about the weather.

I had it on the other day due to severe weather in the area and they showed this lady covering tornado damage. Each time they covered the story through out the day, she stood in the same house debris from 7:00am until over 10:00 at night. They didn't even move the camera to show any other damage in the area.

I would say that it is a sorry set of circumstances when someone would rather watch the Weather Channel than NBC's prime time shows. And on top of that is unhappy with the Weather Channel programming.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

According to the Los Angeles Times, NBC network president Ben Silverman is the latest to fall on his sword for Jeff Zucker: NBC shakes up entertainment team: Jeff Gaspin up, Ben Silverman out Gaspin will oversee all of NBC Universal's TV properties, including the troubled NBC television production studio. Silverman will launch a new company with Barry Diller.
By Meg James

9:51 AM PDT, July 27, 2009

NBC Universal this morning shook up its floundering network entertainment team once again, consolidating its sprawling television empire into a single group and installing a no-nonsense veteran to try to clean up the mess.

Jeff Gaspin, a low-key executive who has been overseeing NBC Universal's successful cable television group, assumed management of all of the company's television properties including its problem-plagued division: NBC and its television production studio.

As part of the moves, NBC's self-proclaimed "rock star" entertainment chief, Ben Silverman, is exiting NBC to form a new company with Barry Diller's Interactive Corp. Although NBC positioned Silverman's departure as his decision to leave, it was no secret that NBC Universal President and Chief Executive Jeff Zucker was increasingly concerned that NBC was moving even further adrift after four years of management turmoil, expensive shows that quickly flamed out and broader problems of tumbling ratings and plummeting profits.

Just two months before the critical launch of Jay Leno into prime time, Zucker realized that he had to make a change and could no longer ignore NBC's festering management problems. Silverman had not demonstrated the leadership or programming Midas touch that Zucker had expected when he hired him two years ago in another dramatic shakeup. Instead of restoring the peacock to glory, NBC has dug itself into a deeper hole.Why isn't it a surprise that yet another Zucker decision has dug NBC "into a deeper whole"? When will Jeffrey R. Immelt realize that Zucker is ultimately responsible for "NBC's festering management problems", which have lasted longer than the careers of all NBC executives but Zucker?

 

[mattCR]

• Fox execs show up at the CTA and throw some GREAT barbs NBC's way.. some hilarious stuff here..
• http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/08/06/more-from-fox-execs-futurama-glee-dollhouse-but-no-more-ki/
  
  

• On Leno's move to 10, Reilly said you have to look at the move and how it'll do from a "holistic" standpoint. He wasn't shy about pointing out his former network's shortcomings. "The (Tonight) show has always tapered off in second half; does that tapering occur (at 10)? (NBC) will strugle at 8, and we no powerhouses at 9. So yoy have to look at whole picture."
• When asked where he was when Ben Silverman, the man who replaced him at NBC, announced his resignation, Reilly shot back, "When, the official announcement or the six month pre-announcement?"

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Most of the shows I love on NBC were commissioned under Reilly's tenure at the network. NBC was just starting to show signs of life again when Zucker canned him in favor of Silverman.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Comcast to buy controlling stake in NBC Universal, dump NBC network and O&O stations

It looks like Jeff Zucker's actually managed to kill the first major American network, prominent in radio and later television for over eight dacdes, since 1926.

 

[Patrick_S]

I'm not sure where you are getting the "kill" idea.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It's not that I have anything against Jeff Zucker personally. But he has been a consistent failure since being promoted from Today producer, and has been repeatedly promoted despite escalating failures. When he took over as president of entertainment for NBC, the network was far and away the highest rated network in America. Now it regularly ties the CW and Univision. Since he bumped out Bob Wright atop the whole of NBC Universal, the company has lost more than $20 billion -- or around half -- of its value. If the company were still worth $45 billion, GE wouldn't be thinking about selling and Comcast wouldn't be able to afford it. If the Comcast deal goes through, Comcast wants to mine the company for its cable assets and dumb NBC and the owned and operated stations to a third party. It's hard to imagine the number five rating network surviving long on its own with the production studio and cable channels as a buffer. This deal could literally mean the end of the National Broadcasting Company, a demise that would have been unimaginable before Zucker's reign at the channel.

 

[Diallo B]

Originally Posted by Patrick_S


I'm not sure where you are getting the "kill" idea.

i think death can be applied here. is it legal for a company that broadcasts all networks to own one of the networks???

 

[MatthewA]

Who's to say NBC won't do better without being part of a conglomerate that includes a studio? It did fine without a studio; keep in mind that it and Universal have only been corporate siblings for a couple of years.

Originally Posted by Diallo B

is it legal for a company that broadcasts all networks to own one of the networks???

Well, Time Warner owns Time Warner Cable but also owns half of the CW and all of TNT, TBS, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang. The government has never given them guff about it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MatthewA

Who's to say NBC won't do better without being part of a conglomerate that includes a studio? It did fine without a studio; keep in mind that it and Universal have only been corporate siblings for a couple of years.

Before the merger, NBC produced shows through its own studio, NBC Studios. When GE bought Vivendi's non-music entertainment assets and merged them with NBC, NBC Studios and Universal Television were merged into Universal Media Studios. One of the major reasons for NBC wanting to acquire Universal was the production studio, which produced many of NBC's hits at the time. (NBC and Universal Television, formerly MCA TV and earlier Revue Studios have had a decades long relationship with one another) Since the FCC dropped the ban on broadcasting shows from an in-house production studio, having a studio as well as a production company has been almost a necessity. The only independent production company that still thrives is Warner Bros. Television, which has a huge roster of big name showrunners under its umbrella .Which Sumner Redstone spun CBS off from Viacom, he kept the production studio with the CBS Corporation for that very reason. If NBC is spun off, I'm sure they would create their own independent studio, but it'd be a huge disadvantage starting from scratch (even if the new company gets to keep the rights to NBC's enormous library of old shows.) A lot of small, niche shows stay on the air because the network knows its production arm will make the money back in syndication and DVD sales. If you're an independent network, you're at the mercy of the first run advertising dollars. And when you're a fourth or fifth run network amidst the worst advertising slump in generations, I don't think that's enough.

 

[Tim Tucker]

A story from today's Morning Edition from NPR

Leno Would Welcome A Return To Late Night

"Jay Leno made the switch to prime time in September. His show has not been doing very well in the ratings lately. In a published interview, Leno said if NBC offered him The Tonight Show again, he would take it. Leno's low ratings come at a time when General Electric is said to be selling a stake in NBC Universal to cable company Comcast."

 

[MatthewA]

End game:

Reuters: Jeff Zucker will be head of NBCU/Comcast venture

 

[Tim Tucker]

Sheer madness! The man ruins everything he touches, and he still rises.

 

[Walter C]

Good, I hope he takes Comcast down with him. I can't stand them being able to black out the Phillies, Flyers and Sixers games that are on suppose to air on one of the basic cable networks (like ESPN or TNT).