"Please God Someone Help Me Find The Remote The TV's Stuck On CNN And I Can't Change The Channel"

The authority, tone and, most of all, correctness of this entire segment just cannot be overstated.

Watch as Jon Stewart utterly destroys CNN and its "new direction" under fail-upward king Jeff Zucker.

Quote of the Day

"I think if I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that facts matter. And we shouldn’t be afraid to have tough and honest conversations, and maybe even argue a little bit when there’s a lot at stake. And yes, Gov. Sununu, I am talking to you."

-- Soledad O'Brien, signing off her morning show at CNN

So, there she goes: pretty much the last, best hope CNN had at doing real journalism -- certainly in the morning.

O'Brien's Starting Point, as you probably already know, will be replaced by a new Jeff Zucker-engineered Today show-like morning fluff-fest hosted by Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan, which means that at all times the anchor team of this new show will look like it's about to be run down by a car on a quiet forest road late at night. Bolduan, in particular, is an almost comically perfect choice for a morning show host: plainly, unthreateningly attractive, with an on-cam delivery that acts as a kind of televisual morphine -- someone guaranteed never to say anything the least bit interesting who, as it turns out, happens to be married to Michael Gershenson, a real estate investment principal within the Carlyle Group, making her both Beltway and Wall Street royalty.

As the now-famous promo goes -- this is CNN.

Now Barely Conscious

A couple of weeks ago, New York Magazine's Vulture section published a pretty good little piece asking whether NBC had passed the point of no return when it comes to ratings. The gist of it was that with all the damage Jeff Zucker, Ben Silverman and the rest of the staggeringly incompetent NBC entertainment brass did during the first decade of the new millennium, not just programming failure after failure but ignoring shows that could have been nurtured into a solid foundation for the network, NBC may not ever be able to fully recover.

Now it's true that the TV business is much like the movie business in the sense that, as William Goldman famously said, nobody knows nothin'. But it's not crazy to look at the massive shift in viewing habits and the growing dominance of cable, subscription and DVRd TV entertainment and understand that clawing its way back to the light might not just be difficult for NBC -- it may be damn near impossible. Things are only going to get worse the the major broadcast networks, and NBC is now so deep in the hole that it may never be able to fully get out and stay out.

The Vulture article starts with this line: "It's impossible to exaggerate just how bad a 2013 NBC is having."

That was two weeks ago.

And NBC's year just got much, much worse.

Read it and weep.

The Huffington Post: NBC Falls To Fifth Place, Behind Univision/2.21.13

Abandon Ship

Today's column for the Daily Banter examines the latest rumor coming out of CNN and the ways in which I hope it's not true (but think that it probably is).

Here's the opening shot:

"I get that as in every other field of modern entertainment, when it comes to TV news, a rumor is just a rumor. I also get that a rumor generated by The New York Post is often even less than a rumor. But given what we’ve seen lately, particularly what we witnessed last week from the network, the rumor that Soledad O’Brien is on her way out at CNN sounds anything but implausible."

Read the Rest Here

Capus and Trade

You know, I have to admit that I've been watching Jeff Zucker's considerable behind-the-scenes moves at CNN with some fascination. It's pretty well established by now that I think Zucker's a narcissistic prick and a destroyer-of-worlds when it comes to television; his tenure at NBC wasn't just disastrous, it practically brought 30 Rock to its knees in terms of ratings, reputation and respectability. But since taking the reins at CNN, he's demonstrated that he might actually be interested in honoring the network's legacy by restoring it to hard-news greatness. Hiring Jake Tapper was a terrific move -- as was excising CNN's stable of highly paid pundits -- and potentially casting Chris Cuomo for an upcoming morning show shows promise. (Even the decision to possibly pair Cuomo with Erin Burnett would likely dull the latter's edges by making her little more than a pretty newsreader instead of somebody misguidedly led to believe that her opinion, forged by years of blowing Goldman Sachs partners, actually matters.)

But alas, it was only a matter of time before Zucker showed his true colors and made a change at CNN so significant that it had the potential to entirely, negatively impact the direction the network's news department will take moving forward. And so comes word from Reuters that Zucker is considering hiring NBC's departing news president, Steve Capus, and putting him in a position of authority at CNN.

First the good news: After a disastrous eight years in terms of credibility, Steve Capus is finally leaving NBC News. His greatest hits while at NBC include firing Don Imus for a relatively inconsequential on-air comment then, not long after, airing the final videotaped manifesto of Virginia Tech killer Seung Hui Cho (the message seeming to be that insulting college kids on NBC gets you fired while killing a whole bunch gets you all the time you'd like to say whatever's on your mind); agreeing to pay Paris Hilton a million dollars for a post-jail interview (before being called out for it); publicly blaming the media for all the attention NBC's calamitous handling of the Conan O'Brien-Jay Leno affair received, and generally playing Salacious Crumb to Zucker's Jabba the Hutt at just about every turn.

It's sad, though not surprising considering the current corporate media climate, that it took the Today show's plummeting ratings and instantly legendary PR clusterfuck in the wake of Ann Curry's clumsy dismissal -- oh yeah, and Capus presided over that as well -- to finally force Steve Capus out at NBC, but that's exactly what's happened. Comcast began cleaning house as soon as it took over -- in a deal that Zucker's incompetence almost cratered -- and now it looks as if the lack of favors they did themselves along the way has led to most of Zucker's team being just about gone.

The questions is, will these people now resurface at CNN?

Because, you know, they were so effective at NBC -- the once-dominant network that Zucker and company unfathomably took to number four thanks to their collective ego juggernaut.

Voice Over

A couple of people have sent me this already, but it really shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

Mediaite: Major Shakeup at CNN/1.29.13

Basically, some of CNN's highest-profile political pundits have been sent packing. The comedy duo of James Carville and Mary Matalin won't have their contracts renewed and Erick Erickson, fulfilling his destiny, will be heading to -- wait for it -- Fox News.

Zucker's asserting his authority and definitely signaling a change for CNN and I have to admit that if his goal is to ultimately cleanse the network of ridiculous partisan hackery in favor of people like Jake Tapper and Chris Cuomo, I can't find a reason to argue.

It's All Downhill from Here

Today's column for the Daily Banter takes a look at the ways in which Jeff Zucker may already be working his magic at CNN.

Here's the opening shot:

"First there was the news that may have come as a surprise to most reasonable people, but which honestly was all-but-assured to those who understand how the corporate world works: the hiring of Jeff Zucker as the new head of CNN Worldwide. Sure, pretty much everyone with a pair of eyes knew that Zucker had almost singlehandedly ruined NBC and by all accounts should’ve been radioactive for the next century or so, yet anybody experienced in dealing with modern American corporatism knows that there’s a mob-style 'blood in, blood out' thing that happens at the upper echelons of power and once you’ve been accepted into the club, with a few exceptions, you’re there to stay. Zucker has name-recognition and an adeptness at personal PR that borders on sorcery when you consider everything he manages to get people to conveniently forget about him, so the thoroughly offensive decision to give him another shot at running a television network was a punch telegraphed from a mile away."

Read the Rest Here

Quote of the Day

"I think our competition today is anybody that competes for eyeballs and attention and produces non-fiction programming. News is about more than politics and war, we need to broaden that definition of what news is, while maintaining the standards of CNN’s journalistic excellence."

-- Jeff Zucker on his plans for the network now that he's been named chief of CNN Worldwide

And there you have it -- your first indication of what's almost certainly to come.

You know what counts as "non-fiction programming?" in cable?

TLC, E! and Bravo.

Notice he saves the "journalistic excellence" thing for last.

That's right, baby -- Jeff's back on top.

Like a Boss

Yes, I know -- Jeff Zucker was just named president of CNN worldwide.

The thing is, there's no sense in my banging out anything new on this subject because I actually wrote about it a few months ago, when Zucker's name first came up as a possible replacement for the departing Jim Walton. It was then that I made all the points you'd probably expect, the ones that if you have even a cursory understanding of network television and news in particular you're probably making yourself right about now.

So with that in mind, I think the only thing left to do before reposting that column from this past June is to introduce you to the one person who not only thinks that Zucker's latest "fail upward" will be good for CNN, he thinks it's a stroke of pure Five Diamond brilliance that will align the stars and bring the favor of the gods down upon Atlanta. Because Zucker is, you know, a genius.

In his regular column today, long-time Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik calls the hiring of Zucker a "wise and winning" move right off the bat -- and then gets more and more detached from the reality you and I exist in as he goes along.

A few choice excerpts:

"Of all the major executive, talent and programming moves that CNN has made in the last few years, the expected announcement of Jeff Zucker as the president of CNN Worldwide looks like one of the best."

"Zucker's record, from his long and winning stint at NBC's Today, to the sound and classy syndicated production he built for Katie Couric, shows that he knows how to make money without shredding standards."

"Zucker is also steady, credible and tough. CNN needs all that right now in a president. You can bet Zucker, who is hardly press-shy, won't let the PR departments at other cable channels shape media reporters' perceptions of CNN as they do now without hitting back."

Okay, so was Zurawik a guest of honor at Zucker's kid's bar mitzvah or something? That little assessment of Zucker's abilities and history goes beyond glowing into the realm of hagiographically hallucinatory. I don't need to remind you of what really happened at NBC under Zucker's now infamous stewardship because I've done so many, many times and besides you can read about it anywhere.

A few choice details just for the hell of it: Zucker took NBC from #1 to a dismal #4 and made it a global punchline. He gave us Ben Silverman and Donald Trump. He lost NBC a billion dollars in ad revenue in one year. He was personally behind one of the most embarrassing prime-time clusterfucks in broadcast television history, that being the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien debacle. He was unceremoniously fired in the wake of the multi-million-dollar merger he almost singlehandedly scuttled. Four words: To Catch a Predator.

The one thing Zucker's good at, as Zurawik alluded to, is creating his own mythology through a relentless personal PR campaign to other outlets -- and it's served him very well. I'd love to believe that Zucker will do right by CNN and finally bring the network back to life. Unfortunately, there's just one problem: his proven record so far.

Adding: This ringing endorsement...



I rest my case.

"Welcome Back Zucker" (Originally Published, 6.12.12)

Here’s a little something just about everyone in the television business knows: Once you become a high-powered executive, it’s almost impossible to fuck yourself and your reputation so badly that you’ll never work again.

Let’s say you’re some poor mid-level schmuck, doing whatever it is you do right now for a living, and you almost single-handedly make, let’s say, some gargantuan mistake that turns your company into a worldwide laughingstock and threatens to crater an upcoming multi-million dollar merger that’s going to make it the most powerful organization of its kind in the world — there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be radioactive for about the next hundred or so years. Not in television, though — and not if you’re an executive.

Case in point: Jeff Zucker, the former boy wonder of NBC Universal whose breathtaking arrogance and bottomless reservoir of short-sighted quick fixes and dumb-ass gimmickry turned the once-mighty NBC into a perennial last-place loser and whose name became synonymous with epic failure. It was Zucker who was personally responsible for the now legendary clusterfuck that turned NBC’s prime time inside out, led to an affiliate rebellion and eventually culminated in the ugly public departure of Conan O’Brien, all in the name of keeping Jay Leno fat, happy and, most importantly, safely in place at the network. Zucker ultimately left NBC in disgrace, but the important thing to remember is that disgrace is a stench that washes off damn quickly in the amoral world of the television suit.

Zucker’s got name recognition. And he’s got a reputation for putting clever ways of bringing in revenue above actually putting decent programming on the air — and that’s really all anybody cares about anymore in TV. Which is why his name is apparently now being bandied about as a possible candidate for not one but two stratospheric television news positions. Turner President Phil Kent is reportedly considering Zucker as a replacement for CNN Worldwide CEO Jim Walton, whose contract is up in December; Walton’s renewal is on very shaky ground in the wake of an almost staggering drought of ratings, with CNN pulling in record low numbers for months now. Meanwhile, Tribune Co. might also be considering Zucker to help lead the company out of its own wasteland, one brought on by a 2008 Chapter 11 filing that it’s now trying to emerge from.

Actually, the Tribune job would at least make a minor amount of sense given that Zucker’s forte is conjuring short-lived financial success out of thin air through the implementation of all kinds of silly schemes, cheap on-air trickery and relentless cross-pollination. But when it comes to CNN, here’s the thing: The network is already making money. In fact — it’s still turning an impressive profit even as its ratings tank. CNN could easily not worry one bit about how many people are watching it because it’s feeding off plenty of healthy revenue streams besides the traditional ones cultivated by good ratings. Obviously, though, CNN has a reputation to uphold and being the number three cable news network doesn’t exactly jibe with how it’s been perceived in the past and how it would like to be perceived now and going forward — but bringing somebody like Zucker on board to try to bring in those ratings seems more than a little misguided.

Either way, it looks like we haven’t seen the last of Jeff Zucker. You could’ve predicted from the beginning that there would always be somebody willing to put his special brand of spoiled milk back in the refrigerator in the hope that it’d taste better later. That’s just how things work in corporate television.

Welcome Back Zucker

My new piece for the Daily Banter is up. It deals with the possible return of Jeff Zucker to the world of the top-level TV executive -- and how it proves that there's no such thing as a lifetime of banishment once you've been crowned king, no matter how incompetent your reign was.

Here's the opening shot:

"Here’s a little something just about everyone in the television business knows: Once you become a high-powered executive, it’s almost impossible to fuck yourself and your reputation so badly that you’ll never work again.

Let’s say you’re some poor mid-level schmuck, doing whatever it is you do right now for a living, and you almost single-handedly make, let’s say, some gargantuan mistake that turns your company into a worldwide laughingstock and threatens to crater an upcoming multi-million dollar merger that’s going to make it the most powerful organization of its kind in the world — there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be radioactive for about the next hundred or so years. Not in television, though — and not if you’re an executive..."

Read the Rest Here

The Cable Guy

This isn't a surprise in the least -- although to be honest I was kind of pulling for Jack Donaghy.

The Huffington Post: Comcast CEO To Take Over for Zucker at NBC/9.26.10

End of an Error 2: The Zucker Years

Same drill as with Klein, only this time I'm reposting only one piece -- one which I think sums up my position on Zucker and what he did to NBC.

"My City of Ruins" (Originally Published, 1.12.10)

Maybe it's time I made something clear.

Back when I was a cocky 23-year-old producer at WSVN in Miami, I was heavily courted by a guy named Don Browne who at the time was the general manager of NBC's owned and operated station in Miami, WTVJ. He badly wanted me to jump ship and become his 11pm producer and he was willing to blow big, billowing clouds of smoke up my ass to make it happen; among the compliments he lavished on me during one particular power lunch between the two of us was a claim that he saw in me the next Jeff Zucker. Now in 1993, Zucker was considered NBC's new boy wonder -- named executive producer of the Today Show at just 26-years-old. So even though I had basically stumbled into TV and had yet to take the entire industry the least bit seriously, I understood that a big-gun at NBC -- and Browne was a Jedi Master in the ways of the Peacock, having been the executive VP of news for NBC at one point -- mentioning me in the same breath as Zucker wasn't the kind of flattery you simply shrugged off. And I didn't -- even though I made the choice to stay at WSVN briefly before heading to Los Angeles to work for KCBS.

I say that I didn't shrug it off because I always kept Browne's praise in the back of my mind and in late 1997 when it became clear that I had allowed myself to become little more than comfortable in my discomfort at KCBS, I put out feelers to Don Browne -- who had expressed a genuine desire to keep in touch with me and promised to always take my call if I felt like I wanted to talk about my career, the business, whatever -- and sure enough, he welcomed the idea of making room for me at WTVJ. As it turned out, the station was going through a regime change, with another NBC wunderkind, 28-year-old Ramon Escobar, having just taken the reins as news director. Browne flew me to Miami, had me meet with everyone and made me an offer I honestly couldn't refuse -- which kind of befit his status as an intimidating Godfather within the NBC power structure.

I'll always be glad I made the decision to go to WTVJ, as it remains one of the best work experiences of my career -- the people there more like family than coworkers. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that one of Don Browne's major selling points during his attempt to draft me was that I wouldn't be working for just anyone -- I'd be working for NBC. To hammer that reality home, he even flew me to New York City to visit 30 Rock; sit in on the Today Show; make it crystal clear that I was going to be a part of something extraordinary. The entire experience was exhilarating -- and it marked the first time that I truly appreciated the career that I had stepped in by accident, the abilities that I had largely taken for granted up to that point.

Bottom line: I was proud to work at NBC. So proud in fact that I continued to work for the company when I moved back out to L.A. with the wife that I had met at WTVJ. So proud that I couldn't have been more thrilled that my shot at personal and professional rebirth and redemption in the wake of 9/11 came from MSNBC and my former news director, Ramon Escobar.

I can occasionally be a bit of a feisty pain in the ass as an employee -- I believe that most decent newspeople are -- but that doesn't mean that I didn't spend years thinking of NBC as my home. It was, to me at least, a shining beacon of terrific programming and rock solid journalism, and one that I felt honored to be a part of.

I bring this up because it should be obvious by now that I pick on NBC quite a bit in the stuff that I write here and at the Huffington Post. Many regular readers have noticed and even confronted me on the seemingly curious fact that I take aim at NBC Universal far more than I even do Fox News Channel.

So I guess I felt like it was time to explain myself: Call it tough love -- borne mostly out of sadness, frustration and, occasionally, outright anger.


Over the past few years, I've watched NBC go from being the network I believed was consistently devoted to excellence above every other consideration -- committed to the notion that, as Don Browne used to say, "First be best, then be first" -- to one that will sacrifice not just quality but any and all ethical considerations in a relentless pursuit of profit. Don't get me wrong, as a company NBC is in the business of making money and there's nothing at all wrong with that -- it just used to achieve that end by offering audiences the best programming and news coverage on television. It was best, which is why it was first, which is why it made money. But somewhere along the line network executives -- particularly and ironically Jeff Zucker, who was named CEO of NBC TV in 2005 and then CEO of the NBC Universal empire in 2007 -- decided that cash would be the only consideration, that it could be amassed without even earning it by means of great shows and a consistently above-the-board news operation at the highest levels of management, and that the rise of cable and non-traditional media provided the perfect excuse for making this kind of major paradigm shift. The shareholders likely thought Zucker was brilliant for expanding NBC's properties across several platforms then turning each into a giant promotional machine for the others until "NBC product placement" was all any NBC show or network was good for; for hiring a worthless, self-obsessed hack like Ben Silverman to dumb down prime time; for bringing in bags of money while slashing costs, culminating in the cynical for-profit-only ploy that put Jay Leno in prime time five nights a week. Unfortunately, while get-rich-quick schemes tend to work well in the short-term, they can be devastating long-term -- and Zucker's not so myopic that he shouldn't have realized this about the business model he'd adopted. There was no meat in the tasty-looking sandwich he was serving day after day, and with the collapse of the Leno show, the impending unceremonious exit of Conan O'Brien and the P.R. cataclysm both have caused for the network, almost everyone, maybe even the mighty shareholders looking down from Olympus, can now see that.

What's happened at NBC -- already a perennially anemic network -- over the past week has been, quite simply, one of the most shameful fiascoes in the history of modern broadcast television. We're talking one for the ages. Pushing out Leno to keep Conan O'Brien was questionable enough a move; giving Leno a prime time slot despite the threat of rebellion from the affiliates whose revenue stream you'd be damming up, just because it'd be a corporate cash cow, was worse; pulling the plug to save a giant deal with Comcast Cable was worse still. Now this: taking back the show that was given to Conan to keep him from jumping ship all to keep Leno from jumping ship -- forcing Conan to gracefully and humbly bow out because he refuses to tarnish the good name of a legendary NBC brand, one that NBC itself apparently has no compunction about making radioactive. It's breathtaking, sociopathic incompetence. It doesn't even make good business sense because, once again, the short-term fears of the twitchiest suits might be salved -- Leno's deadly show at 10pm is six feet under and Conan's underperforming stint on The Tonight Show is cut short -- but the chilling effect that this will have not only on audiences but on any young talent from which you might hope to cultivate loyalty is utterly decimated. Why should anyone trust anything an NBC executive says from here on out?

This is the problem NBC Entertainment Chief Jeff Gaspin is facing right now as he tries to clean up the mess and duck the fire caused by the spectacular implosion of NBC's 10pm and late night lineup (to say nothing of what was left of the network's tattered reputation) and the exit of one of its marquee talents -- the disaster that "boy wonder" Jeff Zucker essentially created. And where is Zucker while all this is going on -- while Gaspin's head is in the crosshairs? Who knows. He hasn't made a public appearance or granted an interview since the crap started rolling downhill last week; I'd like to think that he's in a bunker somewhere honorably falling on his sword, but given that his contract was just bafflingly renewed for another three years, that seems an unlikely scenario. Make no mistake, though -- that's exactly what needs to happen.

I'm willing to concede that Jeff Zucker's meteoric rise was made possible only by his seemingly bottomless reservoir of creative short-term fixes for whatever problems he was confronting at any particular moment, and that the shareholders had demanded that he cut costs and increase profits. But a willingness to take potentially profitable gambles, while admirable, comes with an inherent risk: Somebody needs to pay when a poorly thought-out experiment -- a shockingly obvious "quick fix" -- fails to the tune of millions of dollars, the loss of a bankable star, and a public relations nightmare that has the potential to threaten a proposed mega-merger. And there's no doubt that the person who should pay for this instantly legendary clusterfuck is the man at the top who instigated the whole thing: Jeff Zucker.

That likely won't happen, of course. In fact, if you believe what David Carr of the New York Times posted on Twitter yesterday, behind the scenes Zucker is walking around blaming Conan for letting him down by delivering a low-rated show. If this is true, it's astonishing while, strangely, not the least bit surprising -- and it makes Zucker the personification of all that's wrong with corporate America these days. No one takes responsibility; everyone passes the buck; it's always the fault of the victim; and when everything falls apart and the whole thing goes to shit while you're in charge, you get to keep your high-paying job and arrogantly pretend like nothing ever happened.

Here's how it should work: You roll the dice and lose -- you pay up and leave. It feels like anything but a coincidence, though, that neither the guy who created this disaster -- Zucker -- nor the guy who will immediately benefit from it on the air -- Leno -- has the good sense to put humility above ego and step aside. Neither, apparently, will accept the consequences of his actions or an unlucky turn of the cards.

For Leno it's really no surprise: He's a good guy but he's been coasting on ironically aimless ambition, unable to tell you why he wants what he wants only that he wants it, for years. But Zucker shouldn't be able to delude himself; the wreckage piled around him is simply too deep to ignore. NBC is now in ruins, and it happened under his watch and because of his actions.

I never did turn out to be Jeff Zucker, obviously. I was never as focused, didn't have the Harvard education and generally didn't care as much about the business of television as he did. True, I unfortunately didn't get to be a CEO and make ten million a year. But I also won't go down in history as the man who destroyed NBC.

All I'll do is be heartbroken that it happened.

30 Shock

Apparently the gods of good TV are cleaning house today.

The New York Times: Jeff Zucker Announces Departure from NBC/9.24.10

All I need now is to learn that Oprah keeled over dead after choking on a cheeseburger and my day will be complete.

The Downward Spiral

I rarely repost a piece within just a few months of its initial release on this site or at the Huffington Post, but this morning I want to republish the wrap I did on the whole Conan/NBC/Leno debacle from January for one important reason: The story is back in the headlines in a huge way, and once again the main players in this drama are taking sides and accusing each other of all sorts of malfeasance. Take for instance NBC, which is now claiming that Conan O'Brien lied during his 60 Minutes interview last Sunday night when he said that it would've cost the network more to buy out Leno than it would have to simply move him back to his old time slot and give the "new guy" the boot. It's amusing at face value that NBC management thinks anyone should trust anything it has to say at this point, given recent history, but there's no underestimating the effect that all that rarefied air at the top of the New York City skyline tends to have on what were once ostensibly just average guys in suits. That said, two things should never be forgotten: A) the original decision to move Leno to 10pm was never about producing quality or even ratings but was instead all about making money on an unbelievably dirt cheap show, and B) Unlike Conan, Leno was allowed to fail during his original run on The Tonight Show for years before he finally found his footing and turned into the unfunny and apparently indestructable juggernaut he is today. This piece, by the way, as it appeared at HuffPo, is generally the first thing that pops up if you Google my name -- which means, I guess, that somebody's been reading it.

"My City of Ruins" (Originally Published, 1.12.10)

Maybe it's time I made something clear.

Back when I was a cocky 23-year-old producer at WSVN in Miami, I was heavily courted by a guy named Don Browne who at the time was the general manager of NBC's owned and operated station in Miami, WTVJ. He badly wanted me to jump ship and become his 11pm producer and he was willing to blow big, billowing clouds of smoke up my ass to make it happen; among the compliments he lavished on me during one particular power lunch between the two of us was a claim that he saw in me the next Jeff Zucker. Now in 1993, Zucker was considered NBC's new boy wonder -- named executive producer of the Today Show at just 26-years-old. So even though I had basically stumbled into TV and had yet to take the entire industry the least bit seriously, I understood that a big-gun at NBC -- and Browne was a Jedi Master in the ways of the Peacock, having been the executive VP of news for NBC at one point -- mentioning me in the same breath as Zucker wasn't the kind of flattery you simply shrugged off. And I didn't -- even though I made the choice to stay at WSVN briefly before heading to Los Angeles to work for KCBS.

I say that I didn't shrug it off because I always kept Browne's praise in the back of my mind and in late 1997 when it became clear that I had allowed myself to become little more than comfortable in my discomfort at KCBS, I put out feelers to Don Browne -- who had expressed a genuine desire to keep in touch with me and promised to always take my call if I felt like I wanted to talk about my career, the business, whatever -- and sure enough, he welcomed the idea of making room for me at WTVJ. As it turned out, the station was going through a regime change, with another NBC wunderkind, 28-year-old Ramon Escobar, having just taken the reins as news director. Browne flew me to Miami, had me meet with everyone and made me an offer I honestly couldn't refuse -- which kind of befit his status as an intimidating Godfather within the NBC power structure.

I'll always be glad I made the decision to go to WTVJ, as it remains one of the best work experiences of my career -- the people there more like family than coworkers. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that one of Don Browne's major selling points during his attempt to draft me was that I wouldn't be working for just anyone -- I'd be working for NBC. To hammer that reality home, he even flew me to New York City to visit 30 Rock; sit in on the Today Show; make it crystal clear that I was going to be a part of something extraordinary. The entire experience was exhilarating -- and it marked the first time that I truly appreciated the career that I had stepped in by accident, the abilities that I had largely taken for granted up to that point.

Bottom line: I was proud to work at NBC. So proud in fact that I continued to work for the company when I moved back out to L.A. with the wife that I had met at WTVJ. So proud that I couldn't have been more thrilled that my shot at personal and professional rebirth and redemption in the wake of 9/11 came from MSNBC and my former news director, Ramon Escobar.

I can occasionally be a bit of a feisty pain in the ass as an employee -- I believe that most decent newspeople are -- but that doesn't mean that I didn't spend years thinking of NBC as my home. It was, to me at least, a shining beacon of terrific programming and rock solid journalism, and one that I felt honored to be a part of.

I bring this up because it should be obvious by now that I pick on NBC quite a bit in the stuff that I write here and at the Huffington Post. Many regular readers have noticed and even confronted me on the seemingly curious fact that I take aim at NBC Universal far more than I even do Fox News Channel.

So I guess I felt like it was time to explain myself: Call it tough love -- borne mostly out of sadness, frustration and, occasionally, outright anger.


Over the past few years, I've watched NBC go from being the network I believed was consistently devoted to excellence above every other consideration -- committed to the notion that, as Don Browne used to say, "First be best, then be first" -- to one that will sacrifice not just quality but any and all ethical considerations in a relentless pursuit of profit. Don't get me wrong, as a company NBC is in the business of making money and there's nothing at all wrong with that -- it just used to achieve that end by offering audiences the best programming and news coverage on television. It was best, which is why it was first, which is why it made money. But somewhere along the line network executives -- particularly and ironically Jeff Zucker, who was named CEO of NBC TV in 2005 and then CEO of the NBC Universal empire in 2007 -- decided that cash would be the only consideration, that it could be amassed without even earning it by means of great shows and a consistently above-the-board news operation at the highest levels of management, and that the rise of cable and non-traditional media provided the perfect excuse for making this kind of major paradigm shift. The shareholders likely thought Zucker was brilliant for expanding NBC's properties across several platforms then turning each into a giant promotional machine for the others until "NBC product placement" was all any NBC show or network was good for; for hiring a worthless, self-obsessed hack like Ben Silverman to dumb down prime time; for bringing in bags of money while slashing costs, culminating in the cynical for-profit-only ploy that put Jay Leno in prime time five nights a week. Unfortunately, while get-rich-quick schemes tend to work well in the short-term, they can be devastating long-term -- and Zucker's not so myopic that he shouldn't have realized this about the business model he'd adopted. There was no meat in the tasty-looking sandwich he was serving day after day, and with the collapse of the Leno show, the impending unceremonious exit of Conan O'Brien and the P.R. cataclysm both have caused for the network, almost everyone, maybe even the mighty shareholders looking down from Olympus, can now see that.

What's happened at NBC -- already a perennially anemic network -- over the past week has been, quite simply, one of the most shameful fiascoes in the history of modern broadcast television. We're talking one for the ages. Pushing out Leno to keep Conan O'Brien was questionable enough a move; giving Leno a prime time slot despite the threat of rebellion from the affiliates whose revenue stream you'd be damming up, just because it'd be a corporate cash cow, was worse; pulling the plug to save a giant deal with Comcast Cable was worse still. Now this: taking back the show that was given to Conan to keep him from jumping ship all to keep Leno from jumping ship -- forcing Conan to gracefully and humbly bow out because he refuses to tarnish the good name of a legendary NBC brand, one that NBC itself apparently has no compunction about making radioactive. It's breathtaking, sociopathic incompetence. It doesn't even make good business sense because, once again, the short-term fears of the twitchiest suits might be salved -- Leno's deadly show at 10pm is six feet under and Conan's underperforming stint on The Tonight Show is cut short -- but the chilling effect that this will have not only on audiences but on any young talent from which you might hope to cultivate loyalty is utterly decimated. Why should anyone trust anything an NBC executive says from here on out?

This is the problem NBC Entertainment Chief Jeff Gaspin is facing right now as he tries to clean up the mess and duck the fire caused by the spectacular implosion of NBC's 10pm and late night lineup (to say nothing of what was left of the network's tattered reputation) and the exit of one of its marquee talents -- the disaster that "boy wonder" Jeff Zucker essentially created. And where is Zucker while all this is going on -- while Gaspin's head is in the crosshairs? Who knows. He hasn't made a public appearance or granted an interview since the crap started rolling downhill last week; I'd like to think that he's in a bunker somewhere honorably falling on his sword, but given that his contract was just bafflingly renewed for another three years, that seems an unlikely scenario. Make no mistake, though -- that's exactly what needs to happen.

I'm willing to concede that Jeff Zucker's meteoric rise was made possible only by his seemingly bottomless reservoir of creative short-term fixes for whatever problems he was confronting at any particular moment, and that the shareholders had demanded that he cut costs and increase profits. But a willingness to take potentially profitable gambles, while admirable, comes with an inherent risk: Somebody needs to pay when a poorly thought-out experiment -- a shockingly obvious "quick fix" -- fails to the tune of millions of dollars, the loss of a bankable star, and a public relations nightmare that has the potential to threaten a proposed mega-merger. And there's no doubt that the person who should pay for this instantly legendary clusterfuck is the man at the top who instigated the whole thing: Jeff Zucker.

That likely won't happen, of course. In fact, if you believe what David Carr of the New York Times posted on Twitter yesterday, behind the scenes Zucker is walking around blaming Conan for letting him down by delivering a low-rated show. If this is true, it's astonishing while, strangely, not the least bit surprising -- and it makes Zucker the personification of all that's wrong with corporate America these days. No one takes responsibility; everyone passes the buck; it's always the fault of the victim; and when everything falls apart and the whole thing goes to shit while you're in charge, you get to keep your high-paying job and arrogantly pretend like nothing ever happened.

Here's how it should work: You roll the dice and lose -- you pay up and leave. It feels like anything but a coincidence, though, that neither the guy who created this disaster -- Zucker -- nor the guy who will immediately benefit from it on the air -- Leno -- has the good sense to put humility above ego and step aside. Neither, apparently, will accept the consequences of his actions or an unlucky turn of the cards.

For Leno it's really no surprise: He's a good guy but he's been coasting on ironically aimless ambition, unable to tell you why he wants what he wants only that he wants it, for years. But Zucker shouldn't be able to delude himself; the wreckage piled around him is simply too deep to ignore. NBC is now in ruins, and it happened under his watch and because of his actions.

I never did turn out to be Jeff Zucker, obviously. I was never as focused, didn't have the Harvard education and generally didn't care as much about the business of television as he did. True, I unfortunately didn't get to be a CEO and make ten million a year. But I also won't go down in history as the man who destroyed NBC.

All I'll do is be heartbroken that it happened.

Quote of the Day

"It's funny how much attention that's gotten. It's no different than what I've said all along... it's all about the timing."

-- Spectacularly incompetent NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, responding to the rumor that he's considering running for public office in New York

So, yeah -- look for Jeff Zucker to potentially bring the keen managerial acumen he's displayed at NBC over the past couple of years directly to the daily lives of millions of people. How does "State Comptroller Jay Leno" sound?

You know, I actually envy the level of oblivious arrogance it must take to have your head so far up your own ass that you've actually come to believe you're smelling roses rather than shit. It's got to be wonderfully refreshing thinking that you can do no wrong, regardless of all kinds of evidence to the contrary. Zucker's the personification of corporate hubris -- the immoral, sociopathic certitude held by a specific breed of criminal asshole that's run roughshod over 98% of this country -- all wrapped up in one predictably Napoleonic package.

Can't wait to see the campaign posters, though. Might I suggest "I'm with Dope-o?"

Credit Where Credit Is Douche

You know how after an especially lengthy and difficult crap, the horrid stench can linger in the bathroom for what seems like hours? Well, Ben Silverman is a little like that for NBC; he's the post-nuclear-defecation stink that just won't go away. (If you followed this metaphor to its natural conclusion, Jeff Zucker would be the floater that refuses to be flushed.)

Case in point -- the fact that even now, almost a year after getting his worthless ass kicked to the curb by the Peacock, Silverman is the ongoing butt of all sorts of brilliant meta-mockery on 30 Rock.

See for yourself:



(If by some chance Hulu decides to become predictably temperamental and the video doesn't work, go here)

In honor of the fact that Silverman remains an epic example of who not to hire if you're attempting to run a successful television network, here are two of my favorite past mentions of him on this site:

"Quote of the Week" (Originally Published, 7.30.09)

"Its go time brother!!!!!!! Let’s rock it out!!!!!"

-- Ben Silverman's e-mail announcing his ouster as co-chairman of NBC Universal Entertainment

Jesus, even as he leaves the network he spent the past couple of years basically destroying from the inside out, he can't resist being a spectacular douche. Silverman's always been the ultimate example of failing upward -- the poster boy for an entire genus of preening idiots who somehow shuck-and-jive their way to the top but consistently fuck up everything they touch because, in reality, they don't have a shred of talent to back up all that megalomaniacal bluster. He's never been any better than the worthless Speidi-esque celebutards his programming has been based around and targeted toward -- and unfortunately, it took NBC going completely to hell for somebody to wise up and finally throw him out. Not surprisingly, though, Silverman's already landed a plum gig with Barry Diller over at IAC. Because it apparently will take literally burning an entire company to the ground for this fucking tool to finally lose that wholly undeserved "wunderkind" label.

"American Idiots" (Originally Published, 5.29.08)

I've been trying to find a way to include this in a more substantial piece, but really, about what? What could I possibly say about the larger implications of NBC's hyper-hyped and comically panderous "All American Summer" schedule that hasn't already been considered by anyone with an IQ over 40?

Every time I see another bombastic commercial for Nashville Star -- now inexplicably moved from, ironically, cable's "USA" network to NBC proper -- I have to fight the urge to throw something heavy at my television. If you've been fortunate enough to miss the full ads because all that flashing red, white and blue has caused you to go into an immediate epileptic seizure, they foist the likes of brand new Nashville Star host Billy Ray Cyrus (now with stronger blonde highlights) on you -- calling him "America's Dad," which would apparently make all 300 million of us untalented teenage tramps. Beyond that, NBC's motley collection of smarts-deprived shows includes American Gladiator, America's Got Talent (see a pattern developing here?) The Baby Borrowers -- the premise of which reads like a pro-abstinence counselor's wet dream -- and of course Celebrity Circus, which stretches the already tenuous definition of "celebrity" in our culture to new lengths by slapping the label on Antonio Sabato Jr., Stacey Dash from Clueless and that idiot Chris Knight (now in his second pop cultural resurrection, the reality of which officially and non-negotiably drops him back six or seven places into the realm of K-list has-beens).

If you're searching for someone to blame for the lowest-common-denominator "Foxification" of the Peacock's once-great primetime lineup, look no further than Ben Silverman, the co-chair of NBC Entertainment and NBC/Universal and the world's most successful overgrown frat-boy douchebag. Silverman is actually the executive producer of Nashville Star, hence why it's being moved up from NBC/Uni's farm league at USA to the majors in what would appear to be a trade for Law & Order: Criminal Intent and, one would imagine, two really shitty shows to be named later. The fact that Silverman is not only successful but has become so via the control of so much NBC programming is all the proof you need of both the existence and virility of pacts with Satan.

Back when I used to work for NBC, we made fun of the network's promotion for its summer rerun schedule; admittedly, the commercials which claimed that "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you" were worthy of a little bit of ribbing.

But I'll take four hours straight of ER reruns every night -- even in the show's present form -- rather than watch NBC resort to relying on Billy Ray Cyrus, Jerry Springer and David Hasselhoff to put asses in front of the TV. Literally.

Bonus Quote of the Day

"I do think that there would be a benefit to having people who have run businesses in office, who have a sense of how to how to get something across the finish line, make hard decisions that actually everybody can get behind... It's something that I would certainly look at."

-- Napoleonic NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, taking arrogant delusion to heretofore unheard of levels when asked if he'd consider running for elected office

To turn a somewhat legendary quote, I guess when Alexander looked out and saw the breadth of his domain he wept for there were no more worlds to thoroughly fuck up and turn into a universal laughingstock.

Taking It On the Chin

I promise I'll leave the whole NBC-Conan-Leno thing alone soon, but a couple of amusing developments this morning:

First, here's something you could've seen coming a light year away: The requisite Jay Leno Image Rehab Tour begins in earnest this Thursday on -- wait for it -- Oprah. How they're gonna fit Jay's chin, Oprah's ass and both of their egos into the studio will be one for the books.

Meanwhile, NBC Uni's profits plunged 30% in the last quarter under the, ahem, "leadership" of Boy Wonder Jeff Zucker. The victory party will be held tomorrow from 11:00am to 11:15am at the Hale & Hearty Soup in the basement of 30 Rock. Get in line early.

Quote of the Day

"Obviously in hindsight, perfect information leads you to that conclusion, that it was a mistake. And I think it’s the sign of a leader to step up and have the guts to reverse it. The worst thing to do is to let that mistake... linger. We tried to correct something that didn’t work."

-- NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker on Charlie Rose last night, begrudgingly admitting to a mistake while still hedging his ass off (to say nothing of patting himself on the back for his "leadership")

Mediaite today makes the argument that a least one point made by Zucker during last night's interview -- namely that by promising Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show in 2004, he kept a money-making team in place until the last possible minute -- is a fair one. I agree -- if you're thinking only in the short-term, which as I've said before is Zucker's personal bête noire when it comes to his ability to manage. Yes, Zucker kept two winners satisfied for five years so that they could make loads more money for the company, but at what cost? As usual, he put a band-aid on a crack in the dam that was guaranteed to quietly grow in size until things finally reached the breaking point. And that's exactly what happened a week or so ago. The long-term effects of the very public black-eye this entire debacle has caused for NBC can't be downplayed, regardless of the money that was made right up to the point where Zucker's quick-fix collapsed and the devil came calling to collect on the deal he'd made.

Zucker basically bullshitted everybody to keep things running smoothly and hoped everything would somehow work out in the end. But anyone who's ever been in any sort of relationship knows the dangers of putting off an inevitable conflict for the sake of temporarily keeping the peace.

(Update, 11:55am: You know, there's something that I think really needs to be made clear here, and it's something I've touched on before: No one should forget the fact that Zucker's essentially lying his ass off. He's continuing to misrepresent the real reason the Leno "experiment" was launched in the first place. He never could come right out and admit that moving Leno to prime time was a purely profit-driven enterprise and that NBC never planned on the show being a success in the traditional sense -- that is, by pulling in even passable numbers. Zucker knew going into it -- from the very beginning -- that Leno would be judged a failure; he didn't care because he knew the show would make money hand over fist for NBC since it cost the company nothing to produce. The only "mistake" Zucker made was misjudging the strength of the affiliate rebellion and the potential impact it could have on the proposed deal with Comcast. If the locals hadn't risen up with torches and pitchforks, Zucker would've continued secretly claiming victory at 10pm while publicly pretending to be concerned over Leno's low numbers, as if notions like quality programming that people tuned in for still mattered.)

Quote(s) of the Day

"It's not rain, it's just God crying for NBC."

-- Tina Fey at last night's Golden Globes

"Let's get on with it before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno."

-- Ricky Gervais at last night's Golden Globes

"This week you didn't need Cinemax to see someone get screwed on TV. So how did NBC let it come to this? Well, I think I can explain it. Let's say you're married and it's the number one marriage in the country, but then you meet someone else who sweeps you off your feet, so you say to her, "I want to marry you, in five years," and she says, "Yes, I will wait five years to marry you." So then you go home and you tell your current wife, "Honey, in five years we're getting a divorce." Now you might think your current wife would be super cool with that and thank you for being honest, but it turns out she's actually super mad and as the five years pass she gets in really good shape. So when the time comes for the divorce, she's looking better than ever. She looks so good that you see other people looking at her and you get jealous, so you come up with an awesome plan: you'll still marry the second person, but you'll also stay married to the first. So you tell the new wife, "Good news! We're totally married, but every night when I get home I'm gonna spend a half hour with my first wife first -- but then I'm all yours." And before you even see how she feels about it, you hold a big press conference and tell people you've changed the future of marriage. Now if you think the new wife is cool with this plan, she's not. She's super mad. And the first wife is also acting weird because, you know, you have two wives. But then, just when you think you're stuck, you come up with a perfect plan to solve all your problems: You kill your second wife."

-- Seth Meyers on Saturday Night Live

Screw what NBC is saying publicly right now. There's no way the company's people at the top (or the bigshots at Comcast for that matter) are enjoying the constant barrage of abuse they're taking on their own network. For God's sake, last night the Governor of California took a shot at NBC live on NBC's air. I was honestly expecting that by the end of the Golden Globes show they'd lower little Jeff Zucker down into the middle of the ballroom like a pinata and give everybody baseball bats.