Though you probably heard about NBC entertainment chief Kevin Reilly getting the ax in yesterday's Bill Carter column or the Meg James' Los Angeles Times piece, the news first broke that Jeff Zucker was sticking a shiv in the only guy who's managed to attach the word "success" to the peacock network with Nikki Finke (who posted rumors on Friday).
So, um, what the hell? CONTINUED »
After losing the ratings race to ABC for a second week, NBC has apparently decided to shake things up in the control room.
And, according to Radar, the first head to roll is apparently that of veteran John Reiss, executive producer of Nightly News With Brian Williams.
Sources say an official announcement will be delayed for several weeks to avoid the appearance of NBC panicking at losing ground in the ratings race. Reiss and an NBC News spokeswoman did not return repeated calls for comment.
Even more interesting than the painfully drawn-out termination, however, is Radar's insinuation that Reiss may have been fired for reasons unconnected with the recent dip in ratings.
According to Radar, Reiss and anchor Brian Williams got into a "newsroom shouting match" a few weeks prior, and now an insider is claiming that Jeff Zucker, the emperor of NBC Universal, had it out for Reiss from day one:
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• The National Journal thinks media is too obsessed with rich people. "Not true!" shrieks unemployed hotel heiress, Paris Hilton.
• Good news for advertisers: DVR users don't fast-forward all the commercials—just the ones on the programs they've remembered to DVR.
• Times' style editor proves he's "already over" Gawker by dissing Thursgay styles and comparing the blog to "your grandfather."
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Thank goodness for Media Wire Daily. If they hadn't taken the time to put together this artful diagram of Jeff Zucker's new top three heavies, we might forever be longing to know which new white people would be running NBC.
• The creator of AMNY wants Boston residents to have TWO disposable dailies!
• Footage of Anna Nicole Smith failing to respond to CPR sells for $500K. Hey, you know what else is dead? Dignity.
• Top journalist to take the stand in the Scooter Libby trial; a puzzled courtroom artist wonders if there's a way to depict "good writing" in her portraiture.
• Journalists are just a bunch of elitist snobs; except for those totally grounded dudes over at The New Yorker.
• Playboy archives to go digital! Just like the New Yorker archives, only with porn!
• The modern woman is unimpressed by uber-perky morning talk show hosts. Nope, no New Yorker punchline there.
• Jeff Zucker accused of being 'too focused on the Les Moonves rivalry, not focused enough on YouTube kicking television's ass.'
• Small bookstores being pushed out by big, corporate chains? Didn't we already see this when our girlfriend forced us to sit through
• Anna Wintour trades in tennis hottie Roger Federer for actor/singer Harry Connick Jr. as this season's Fashion Week arm-candy. Even the biggest Hope Floats fans concede, "it's a huge step down."
• NYO prepares for its big relaunch. It's coming very soon! Any day now! Could even be today! Nope? Perhaps tomorrow?
• Wal-Mart to sell movies, tv shows online. You know what they're still not selling? Walls. (Haha, remember? Paris Hilton from The Simple Life, season 1? Nobody?)
• Jeff Zucker, NBC, pissed at YouTube for letting "You" run wild. Oh, how far "You" have fallen since the days you were named Time's "Person of the Year."
• Another article pointing out the infallible New Yorker's myriad of sloppy mistakes.
• The Portland Press Herald apologizes for accidentally threatening to destroy the entire Jewish race.
• Jeff Zucker to spin around in his desk chair while his three new senior deputies deal with "that whole YouTube thing."
• NYT has one more chance to talk about the Iraq-inspired "cartoonish violence" of this year's Super Bowl ads.
• Atoosa Rubenstein is negligibly closer to unveiling homemade films about her cat on LSD.
• In the wake of Money Honeygate, AdAge reflects on the valuable lessons we've learned about travel demands and merchandising.
• A videographer and "alleged journalist" continues to stay behind bars for no apparent reason.
• Mainstream media join together in denouncing President Lame Duck; European countries continue to experience "schadenfreude" at United States' misfortune.
• Jeff Zucker to become next chief exec of NBC Universal. Zucker to celebrate his new appointment by destroying all evidence that Suddenly Susan ever existed.
• Rupert Murdoch to bequeath $100 million in stocks to each of his six children. Related: if you listen closely, you can actually hear Tori Spelling weeping.
• Anheuser-Busch to launch Bud.Tv; feminists to initiate emergency phone chain.
• "In Search of Serendipity: Can Online Papers Recreate Joy of Print?" (or, "The WSJ Online On The Benefits Of The WSJ Online.")
That guy responsible for laying off 700 NBC staffers? Yeah, he's taking over the company.
Of course you know the name Jeff Zucker. Now you'll know him as the CEO of NBC Universal, taking over for Bob Wright. "Four people at the company" confirmed Zucker will be named to the top spot this week, putting to bed any notion that … oh, wait, this is news to nobody..
• Judith Regan enjoys fasting and impromptu 21-day liquid diets, as well as publishing hypothetical tell-alls by not-so-hypothetical killers.
• The Village Voice is reportedly having trouble convincing anyone that they should work for The Village Voice.
• Slate offers the Sulzbergers free advice on how to "take the NYT private." In exchange; Slate requests bi-annual invites to the Sulzberger mansion and 2 years free membership to Times Select.
• Heroes may have used its superpowers to save NBC president Jeff Zucker's job.
• YouTube to share its revenues with You, possibly giving You that extra monetary incentive to illegally record Saddam Hussein's execution on your cell phone cam.
• Bill Gates says "with tv, in five years, people will laugh at what we've had." Related: Bill Gates' sense of humor reportedly 'almost as funny' as binary code.
Did you hear?: CNBC is all the rage again! Once the dumping ground for financial advice nobody wanted to read and weekend infomercial marathons, now the NBC Universal biz network is only the dumping ground for weekend infomercial marathons. With the markets generally going in investors' favor, everyone is suddenly interested in what James Cramer has to say about mutual funds. And Newsweek – itself a vested third-party, given its "strategic relationship" with NBC – is here to tell you all about it:
Ratings are soaring among its target audience of 25- to 54-year-olds, up almost 60 percent from last year. Advertisers are following suit, anxious to reach an audience that, while relatively tiny, is perhaps the most affluent in television. Citing data from Mendelsohn Media Research, CNBC pegs median household income of its core viewers at $184,000, with an average net worth of $1.6 million. The network expects record revenue in excess of $450 million and profit of about $275 million this year. "There's a real renaissance at CNBC," says Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal Television, which includes the business network. "It is once again one of the real jewels of the company."
Then again, Zucks, just about anything starts to look shimmery when your crowning achievement – known as NBC primetime – doesn't look half as good as one of Courtney Love's facial craters.
The News Corp. daddy, the YouTube dude, the LAT fella, the CBS News lass, the blogger lady, the "yum-o" chick, and the NBC lad are among the current offerings for I Want Media's "Media Person of the Year" contest. You've spent so much time agonizing over who will be Time's Person of the Year, surely you can spend a few moments deciding whether Jeff Zucker should be rewarded for cutting 700 jobs, Katie Couric should win for a waning newscast, or Tom Freston's your man for getting axed and then taking every opportunity to raise his middle finger to Sumner Redstone. You get where we're going with this.
Remember when NBC's Jeff Zucker announced the era of the scripted programming was over, and that all viewers actually wanted was reality TV and game shows? That was last week, wasn't it? Then so clever of Zucker – whose declaration was paired with 700 job cuts – to reneg on his assertion, shift NBC's scheduling, and return Thursday to its standard two-hour block of comedy.
Letting NBC entertainment chief Kevin Reilly do most of the talking, Zucker has reorganized Thursday nights once again, with the 8pm slot kicking off with My Name Is Earl and The Office, and Scrubs popping in at 9pm with 30 Rock rounding out the block. The new changes hit on Nov. 30.
Wondering what NBC staffers thought about this, we poked around with some insiders. Says one senior level peacock: "They're facing off against mostly dramas on Thursday nights. CBS has Survivor and CSI. ABC has Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty, which is the only real competition when it comes to comedy audiences, but it's a different show than what NBC is offering."
Says another NBC staffer (admittedly, a peon), just a little more bluntly: "Nobody knows what the fuck Jeff Zucker is doing. I'm not kidding. Nobody."
Hot off the NBC job slashing videoconference, we're hearing a number of things. But first, for the record: Jeff Zucker did not sound "douchebaggy." But that's only one source's opinion. Most of what you already know is true: 700 jobs slashed, or about five percent of the work force. Some things you might not have heard from our Pre-Report Report Card:
• MSNBC is being moved to 30 Rock. Officially, yo.
• Contrary to previous reports (like, our own), the Today show will not be affected in staffer cuts.
• The 700 jobs are company-wide, which means its now just Keith Olbermann's PAs who could be looking at job losses, but the guy in the Spiderman costume at Universal Studios might also find himself without a meal ticket.
• Employees will find out within the next week if they're among those to be dismissed.
Reports are still coming in, so we'll let you know when all the peacock feathers have fallen to the ground.
The details remain murky over Rick Kaplan's resignation from the top spot at MSNBC. The public agitprop: that Kaplan willingly resigned after his two and a half years on the job. But buried inside a Philadelphia Inquirer story, as Inside Cable points out, is the insider quibbling.
Meanwhile, back at MSNBC … NBC News president Steve Capus delivered the verdict to Kaplan, but industry insiders say Capus’ boss, NBC Universal TV honcho Jeff Zucker, made the call.
Sources say the two Alpha males clashed on their visions for the network _ Zucker wanted more emphasis on crime and lots of repeats; Kaplan wanted more fresh news. Big Rick is about a foot taller than Zucker, but Zucker outranks him.
“I fully didn’t expect Rick to go as quickly as he did,†says Capus. Still, “I thought it was inevitable, at some point.â€
Meanwhile, TVNewser reports Kaplan yesterday met with Good Morning America brass about that open executive producer slot — which is good news for us. We're just dying to hear about Kaplan and Diane Sawyer coming to blows about childhood obesity.
Kaplan Talks To ABC About GMA Job [TVN]
Related: Breaking: Rick Kaplan Splits MSNBC
Yes, what you see before you is true. A guy named Dave Thomas (of TV Squad, not Wendy's) started a blog called FireJeffZucker.com.
The blog chronicles NBC's programming and pulls news on the company for the purpose of bringing to light all the reasons why Jeff Zucker does not know how to operate a network.
Plain and simple, the site boasts its mission in life:
Our original intention when launching this site was to voice our disdain for NBC's programming.
And, you know, to lobby for the axing of Jeff Zucker from NBC.
NBC's Zucker Makes a New Web Friend [Channel Island]
Fire Jeff Zucker.com
• Satellite photographs of midtown show MTV and BusinessWeek staffers following ex-Time Inc. folks straight to the unemployment line. [MSNBC, Ad Age]
• Take it from Robert Novak, saying "bullshit" on TV will get you a pink slip in your stocking. [Media Week]
• Join us as we wave good-bye to the gossip website nobody ever read. [NYP]
• The New York Times tries to pretend it's part of the free press. [E&P, NYT]
• Jeff Zucker is the one and only person getting promoted this month. And we can't even cash our paychecks until after Festivus. [AP]
• Still not cheered up? Let ABC give you a glimpse of what your former co-workers will be doing tonight. [ABC News]
NBC Universal chief Bob Wright – who we care dearly for because of his not-so-silent antipathy for MSNBC head Rick Kaplan – sent out a company-wide missive earlier today announcing some new organizational changes afoot. These aren't the kind that Time Inc. just announced — those, after all, involved 105 job cuts. Nah, Bob Wright just wants folks to know who is to answer to who (or is that whom?).
Jeff Zucker is named Chief Executive Officer and Randy Falco is named President & Chief Operating Officer of the newly integrated NBCU Television Group. Beth Comstock is appointed to the new position of President, NBC Universal Digital Media and Market Development. Jeff and Beth will report directly to me with Randy now reporting to Jeff in his new role.
After the jump, the full email with the handy new "Who's your daddy?" breakdown at NBC Universal.
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• Because he always knows what's right, Carl Icahn thinks Time Warner's stock would be trading much higher if his decisions were put into place. Namely, breaking up Time Warner. [Business Week]
• During this morning's online chat, WaPo exec editor Leo Downie Jr. says he doesn't think Bob Woodward should resign — though he does believe he should've shut up on TV. [WaPo]
• At this point we really don't need Wenner Media "insiders" to tell us that Jann Wenner and Kent Brownridge haven't been getting along of late, especially since Gary Armstrong in marketing refused to go to alcohol rehab. [WWD & Lowdown]
• British publisher Emap is said to be mulling the sale of its American FHM — and Hearst looks interested, even after shuttering the never-seen Bullet. [NYP]
• Jeff Zucker is tired of blogs receiving so much attention. All the buzz that My Name Is Earl has received, however, he's totally cool with. [Daily Northwestern]
• Since he's on the way out anyhow, we're applauding Ted Koppel's public lashing of President Bush. "One fiasco after another" is how he tells it — just like ABC News! [NYP]
• Colleen Curtis is leaving the Cooke jar at the Daily News to become a supervising editor at Good Morning America, where she's expected to feed us reports on exec producer Ben Sherwood's rage levels. [NYP]
• Good news: Dick Cheney isn't Bob Woodward's source. Bad news: Dick Cheney is still your vice president. [AP]
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