Though Brian Williams filled in the moderator’s chair on Meet The Press today, Mr. Tom Brokaw will take over through the election as we suspected. It might’ve been easy to think Williams was actually quite apt for the gig: He followed Russert’s traditional line of questioning that brought up past statements and offered politicos the chance to contradict themselves or reaffirm their past; Joe Biden was today’s example, asked about the vice presidency. (He had said before that under no circumstances would he want to be VP. He said that again today. Then he qualified that statement by saying he doesn’t want to be VP because Barack Obama just wouldn’t ask him — if if Obama did ask, he’d have no choice but to say yes.)

But that’s not what Jeff Zucker and Steve Capus had in mind. The official announcement came this morning, and Williams telling viewers at the end of today’s broadcast, with 30 Rock revealing Brokaw will take over MTP beginning next Sunday and last through the November election.

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On a NBC News conference call this morning, NBC head Jeff Zucker, NBC News chief Steve Capus, and anchor Brian Williams joined in with a number of others to discuss the future of Meet The Press and the D.C. bureau. A source who was not on the call, but overheard a colleague’s speakerphone listening session, says Tom Brokaw’s name was bandied about. (It’s unclear whether Brokaw was on the call.)

More on the post-Tim Russert future is here.

Maybe Don Imus’ “nappy headed hos” incident was the best thing to happen to MSNBC? It gave Phil Griffin a chance to audition Joe Scarborough, then the host of primetime’s Scarborough Country, for the morning show slot. And it clicked. Now, with sidekicks Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, Morning Joe is attracting some 360,000 viewers on average, or about what Imus was picking up. It’s also scored its host a contract through March 2011.

So 30 Rock must be quite confident with who they’ve chosen to moderate a show that’s part news broadcast, part entertainment fodder, and an excuse for Mika to remind everyone that her brothers and father are all heavily vested in politics, right? Well. Take away what you will from this Jeff Zucker quote: “It’s probably a little unfair to call Joe a ‘space filler.’ But we certainly had a need to fill in the morning.” Vote of confidence, indeed. [NYT]

Jeff Zucker has long been rumored to be one of the New York Post’s biggest anonymous sources on all things GE/NBC. Surely not every story with a Peter Lauria byline carries Zucker’s fingerprints.

But many do.

So we sort of read the paper’s Business section with that always in mind.

So today’s article, about how corporate overlord GE is so afraid of tarnishing its triple-A credit rating that it refuses to give Zucker’s entertainment division the cash it needs to do anything but mosey along to the beat of a tired drummer, and how Zucker is “doing everything he can to grow the media giant” despite that fact, screams of a Zucker plant.

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At its upfront presentation yesterday, NBC Universal had advertisers and media buyers experience a high-wattage walk through, with a HD theatre, photo stations with NBC reality stars, Saturday Night Football announcers offering autographs, food from Bravo’s Top Chef, and the talking car from Knight Rider on display, all culminating in a huge cocktail party with Jeff Zucker offering a brief welcome and Conan O’Brien delivering a brief standup comedy routine.

“In general, the goal was to impress on media buyers just how many ways there are to advertise with NBC and NBCU, with television just being one way. For example, an actual gas pump with TV screen that NBC is using for both messaging and programming shorts at selected gas stations around the country was on display as well as sections hightlighting train car and arena advertising.” [MW]

So did it motivate clients, who feed NBC’s bottom line, to spend “with NBC and its wide ranging media platforms?”

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In not exactly news, NBC confirms they’ve inked Jimmy Fallon to take over for Conan O’Brien when the late night red head does some taking over himself, for Jay Leno, sometime around June 2009. [NYT] There’s been mucho speculation about what Jeff Zucker & Co. were going to decide about NBC’s late night slate, after rampant rumors about Jay Leno not being ready to give up his post, and NBC’s fears that Leno would quickly jump to a waiting competitor like ABC or Fox, allowed for rumormongering about how Leno might not leave, which would mean the network would have to pay O’Brien a rumored $40-45 million penalty fee for not hiring him. That’s a lot of cash, yes, but Leno’s show is, like the Today show, a cash-frickin’-cow.

The possibility that Leno would stick around carried some weight because, well, he’s Leno. And: His ratings consistently beat David Letterman at CBS, and haven’t gone down the path like the sinking ship that is NBC’s primetime. He remains a huge commodity, and it’s certain NBC remained (remains?) nervous about his exit.

But as far back as September 2004, NBC guaranteed O’Brien the 11:30pm slot that Leno holds. They promised it to him, in ink, to keep him from defecting to another network, the very scenario they’re wary of with Leno right now.

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Though a Page Six spy spotted NBC chief Jeff Zucker “climbing out of his black SUV” in front of Katie Couric’s East Side apartment, a Couric “friend” is preemptively shooting down any rumors that Zucker wants his prized lady back, saying “Jeff and Katie have been friends for 20 years. He asked her to get a Mother’s Day gift for his wife, Caryn, and picked it up on the way to his daughter’s play.” [NYP]

Uh huh.

More curious, beside the terrible and transparent excuse given, though, is who “spots” Zucker exiting his car and walking into Katie’s building, except, perhaps, Zucker or Katie themselves.

Zucker has always been rumored to be a serial New York Post leaker, especially when he’s got a takedown agenda, like he did with Beth Comstock in September, floating a rumor that Comstock was leaving NBC U and heading back upstairs to GE. (The news panned out.)

So what would either have to gain?

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Earlier this week, New York’s attorney general Andrew Cuomo held a press conference where he dragged out 30 Rock star Tina Fey to announce the new Piracy Protection Act, which would turn movie piracy into a misdemeanor crime, which means possible jail time, instead of the lame “offense,” equal to a parking ticket, that it is now. As can only be assumed, he had a leisurely lunch with some Motion Picture Association of America reps, who aren’t happy with the possibly-inflated figure of $2.6 billion that’s supposedly lost to piracy in this state alone. (Actually, he certainly met with the MPAA; flanked by NBC head Jeff Zucker, Cuomo was also joined by MPAA chief Dan Glickman. And a 2005 study by the MPAA says piracy cost the industry, overall, $18.2 billion.)

Your tax dollars are about to be put toward creating a special deputy attorney general post and new efforts to involve the Organized Crime Task Force in intellectual property theft, because as we all know, New York’s organized crime families are involved here.

According to Glickman, 90 percent of street and Internet piracy begins with a camcorder. You know, those shady dudes who “cam” movies and then send them off to BitTorrent. But who are we kidding? It’s doubtful that New York’s law enforcement is going to tread on federal territory and go after Internet file-sharing. Which means most of their efforts will be focused on the streets.

The same streets, in fact, that have all but seen those folding tables and garbage bag sacks of copied DVDs disappear. So, uh, continued success with that.

[Photo: Flickr]

The reason Bravo lost Project Runway to Lifetime is because the show’s producers, The Weinstein Company, wanted to force NBC Universal to buy up some of its “second-tier” film projects as part of a contract renewal. NBC balked, but Lifetime was up for the offer, so they took the bait, agreeing to buy “stolen goods.” Or at least that’s the series of events according to NBC and the lawsuit they filed yesterday against Weinstein. And they’re also claiming any cash a court ruling might send its way as punishment to Weinstein for breaking their contract – which promised NBC right of first refusal – wouldn’t be good enough. They want to be back in negotiations.

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It’s not so much that NBC chief Jeff Zucker has a comedic factor of zero, or that his attempts at synergy are flat, or that his Borat impression hovers around unwatchable. It’s that this promo is actually supposed to air on TV next week.

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UGH Rumor has it that NBC might sue the WGA for canceling the Golden Globes. Does NBC even have a PR consultant? [Deadline Hollywood]

Now that the writers strike is coming to a close – though it’s not a done deal yet – and you know what to set your TiVo for and when, and what the industry will look like for the next few weeks, it’s time to answer the question on everybody’s mind: WHO WON THIS MOTHER F-ER?

Lots of people have lots of different answers.

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It took three months, but the public has grown tired of reality TV. Year-to-year ratings comparisons are beginning to reflect the ongoing writers strike. The CW lost 50% of its 18-49 audience from a year ago, ABC slipped by 23%, CBS by 26% and Fox by 15%.

Meanwhile, at the National Association of Television Program Executives conference in Las Vegas, Jeff Zucker called for a change in network programming. With insights like that, we could be CEO of NBC Universal.

COPYING CBS’S STYLE Following an announcement yesterday that CBS has cut 20 projects from development for next season, NBC, FOX, CW and ABC have also made scaled back on pilots. Jeff Zucker blamed the current recession for his network’s decision. It’s the writers strike, stupid. [NYT, Variety]

“Absolute bullshit” is what some MSNBC staffers are calling the notion that NBC News brass doesn’t care about daytime programming. The reaction comes from our item this morning, where a former network staffer with close ties to MSNBC insisted “Zucker does not give a shit about the ratings of the daytime news block on MSNBC. […] All they care about is MSNBC ’sales prime, because that’s where they think the money is.” From what we’re hearing from the calls that are coming from inside the house, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin is insisting dayside remains a priority.

If you’re working in daytime at MSNBC, start counting your days. Or your hours — because you’re the least respected part of NBC News, at least when it comes to Jeff Zucker’s interests, and GE’s shareholders. You’re not making your parent company very much money, or enough to satisfy them when it comes to deciding who’s gotta go to save some $40 million. And no matter how hard you try, your ratings and revenue mean little.

“Zucker does not give a shit about the ratings of the daytime news block on MSNBC,” says a well-placed network insider. “The sales people are always telling this to the NBC News management. All they care about is MSNBC ’sales prime,’ because that’s where they think the money is. This in my view is so fucking stupid as to be unimaginable, but that’s NBC U.”

So what about MSNBC primetime? Peter Lauria called it “sacrosanct” in the Post this morning, but that’s not entirely true, either, claims our source. Dan Abrams would’ve lost his on-air gig had they been able to sign Rosie O’Donnell. Tucker Carlson took a pay cut just to keep his job when his contract was renegotiated. And while MSNBC chief Phil Griffin has always liked Chris Matthews, he is “not happy about Hardball,” says a source, and “finds it ‘boring.’” Keith Olbermann, with his fat new $4 million contract and respectable ratings, it the only one who should be 100 percent comfortable. Not that folks like Matthews are going anywhere – let’s not start that rumor – but it’s possible they could lose some authority of their shows in an effort to reinvigorate them.

The Post’s Peter Lauria today updates the story we already told you about on Monday: that Jeff Zucker-ordered savings in NBC’s news division is going to amount to massive job cuts.

He’s looking to save some $20 to $40 million, with pink slips coming this week or next at MSNBC and NBC News; CNBC will be saved, supposedly, because they need all the horsepower against Fox Business Network they can muster. Two big names are known to be out the door: primetime programming chief and Bill Wolf (holdover from Rick Kaplan’s era) and editorial director Davidson Goldin (who came over when Dan Abrams was general manager). But those helping build the competitive primetime slate at MSNBC shouldn’t have much to fear; Zucker wants to keep that spirit alive. Happy holidays!

Are broadcast journalists and NBC network execs skeptical about Brian Williams upcoming stint on SNL? Possibly!

But not Jeff Zucker, who gave Williams the okay (possibly because he has some “influence” over at 30 Rockefeller Center) and Tim Russert, who considers it “an honor for this news division” and, coincidentally, is Williams co-moderator for the Democratic debates.

Frankly, we’d be more interested to hear what Katie Couric thinks about all this. But strangely, after that whiny interview she gave to NY Mag a few months back, she’s been letting her third-place ratings do most of the talking.

NBC Universal prez Jeff Zucker sums up his impressions of the Fox Business Network: “Looking at the channel for about five seconds, I happened to catch one of their anchors interviewing the Naked Cowboy (street busker Robert Burck, who performs in his underwear) in Times Square. When I saw that, I decided it was time to turn back to CNBC.” [TVNewser]

In a decent interview (we just talked about) with NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker, The Hollywood Reporter posed this hypothetical: “Rupert Murdoch could acquire the Wall Street Journal. If he integrates that with Fox Business Channel, what does that mean for CNBC?”

Now that Rupert has bought Dow Jones, let the fun begin in changing Jeff’s response from a “could acquire” to a “did acquire” situation.

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