I'm just catching up on my Twitter reading, and Forbes' Lacey Rose has some interesting sound bites from NBCU chief Jeff Zucker at a UBS conference on her Twitter feed. Among them:
we've underinvested in development at nbc in recent years. i think that was a mistake
the fact is, we haven't done a good enough job [w/ nbc]
i think that the management changes+reinvestment in programming there will over the next few yrs begin to play out-zucker on fixing nbc
we haven't done a good enough job. hopefully comcast can certainly help us think thru the biz model
the last thing we want to do is anything that harms the (cable) model that has worked so well for us + them for so long.-zucker on hulu
You can read all of the snippets Ms. Rose posted on her Twitter feed.
how does zucker get by trying to take credit for the cable success?
because those successes happened under his watch with people he hired to run them, just like the failures for the broadcast net happened under his watch?
I agree with the methodology where if he get the blame for broadcast, he gets the credit for cable.
But I know that there will be those who will want to pin every NBCU shortcoming on him, while not giving him credit for any of NBCU’s success.
NBC is dead in the water.
The real question is: has he declared whatever new strategy he has as the new paradigm for broadcast TV? Or has he given that up?
NBC will make its comeback down the line in the near future but right now its still a dead network that relies on Sunday Night Football.
Bonnie Hammer is the one to give credit to in regards in successes on USA and SyFy.
Hopefully this translates as they are planning on going with my plan for saving NBC.
I think we need to give him major cudos for just acknowledging that mistakes were made. And I think he’s dead on about the mistakes in under-developing. I’ve been saying that NBC needs to invest more into development, and it looks like that may be happening.
This smacks of Zucker making GE the fall guy for the NBC “underinvestment”. I’ve read bits and pieces of the same thing in other sources recently. It wasn’t Zucker’s call that he put the lid on costs at NBC broadcast, it was all GE’s fault!
It could also simply be part of a “love up the media focus that is NBC broadcast” strategy too. Certainly the Comcast folks have been providing sound bites about how much they just *love* NBC broadcast.
Marry that to its actual significance to the business though, and we’ll see if actions speak louder than words.
i agree 100 percent that he is making GE the fall guy and that this is just the begining…
cody says:
December 7, 2009 at 2:12 pm
NBC is dead in the water.
NBC has had bad patches before (like all networks) one was in the late 70′s and early 80′s when Fred Silverman ran NBC and had an awful time with one dud after another like the infamous “Super Train” but they came back. NBC has been here for over 80 years and it’s not going any place. It will come back.
Does anybody else always see this pic of Zucker and think it makes him look like Dr. Evil?
nkinsey, I can see that. Around his mouth area.
Zucker looks more like Dr. Stupid in that picture. Or Dr. Clueless.
Mistakes were made? Wow. No kidding?
Only those inside the buildings know who pushed what buttons. Whether or not Zucker contributed to good decisions or bad are something we can’t really suss out from here. I have a feeling that Comcast will figure it out, however, and we will know what it is that they find out when we see what happens to Zucker in a year, once the deal passes governmental approval.
But I’ll give you 2:1 right now that his ass hits the pavement hard when he’s thrown out on it. He might even bounce. Because this type of spin would not be coming out right now if he felt secure. If he felt secure, he’d be keeping his mouth shut about stuff like this.
“Zucker” rhymes with a very popular word that I am sure is being uttered by GE executives this week.
And, from these comments, I’d say he IS panicing and attempting to save his hide from the Comcast bouncers.
@Chuck T.:
NBC is proud as a peacock…I mean LOUD as a peacock!
Wasn’t this the same J.Z. who has touted throughout the last few failed years at NBC how much the network was spending to develop programming?? Even after they signed Leno for primetime, I could’ve sworn he promised that the peacock wasn’t cutting back on development one bit, and even waved his deal with J.J. Abrams as proof. How many sides of his mouth does he have to talk out of?
Well, the people h has hired except for Ben Silverman, have been pretty good. People like Kevin Reilly (Before he fired him), Jeff Gaspin and Bonnie Hammer. But, even though he hired those people, some of his decisions have been bad for NBC.
I have said the before and I will say it again. If it wasn’t for Sunday Night Football and The Olympics the past few years, NBC would really have nothing. Perhaps Dick Ebersol could run primteime?
Jeff Zucker should just let Jeff Gaspin run prime time. Gaspin seems to know what he’s doing at least where Chuck is concerned.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091207-713848.html
Also, Jeff Zucker said,”Pointing out that the network had topped the Nielsen ratings for many years prior to that, Zucker said: “When you’re on top, you stay with things too long, you don’t invest enough [in new programming]…and we made all of those cyclical mistakes.”
Zucker also said that, under the control of Comcast Corp. (CMCSK, CMCSA), NBC is positioned to do better, but said it would take time to show improved results. Comcast and General Electric Co. (GE) announced an agreement last week in which Comcast would acquire a 51% stake in NBC Universal.”