Friday, September 24, 2010

Jeff Zucker OUT at NBC!!!

With the Comcast merger Jeff Zucker departs NBC after completely destroying it.   As head of programming he took NBC from first to deep fourth.  Normally that would be grounds for dismissal.  No.  Jeff became the CEO.  From there he further buried the network, hiring the character Will Arnett plays in RUNNING WILDE to run NBC.   Then there's the whole Leno in primetime disaster followed by the Conan trainwreck.   And along the way he managed to alienate everyone he dealt with with his incredible arrogance.

Job well done, Jeff.

And now you're free to run BP oil.


19 comments :

Mike Barer said...

No image? Something is not right, you should check with customer service.

benson said...

You know he chose to announce it today, because web traffic is lower on Fridays on byKenLevine. That's one smart executive.

Does this mean Pink Lady and Jeff and Supertrain are coming back? Pretty please.

Anonymous said...

Ding Dong indeed!!!

The elfin fellow known affectionately as "That Little Mother Zucker" h.as been forcibly ejected from the plane.

Too bad he probably had a golden parachute.

Stu said...

Any personal stories you'd care to dish Ken?

amyp3 said...

I read that Angela Bromstad(sp?) is the one behind taking P & R off the air and putting the execrable Outsourced on the air - because the latter is her baby, the former was her predecessor Cokehead's. Never thought I'd miss old Cokehead.

Edward Copeland said...

The Peter Principle at work again. Bob Iger kept making monumentally awful decisions when he ran ABC in the 1990s and then he ended up running Disney after they bought them and Eisner resigned.

mac said...

Jeff Zucker appointed Ben Silverman as
co-chairman for NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studios.
Silverman famously referred to writers as the "nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school." Genius - as he was in a job where it was in his interest to cultivate a good relationship with the best writers, that was such a smart move.
Given that TV is always a bit "smoke 'n mirrors" - it's inevitable that bullshit artists like Zucker and Silverman will occasionally talk their way into positions of power. Let's hope some genuinely smart cookie who cares about content will step up to the plate.

Anonymous said...

Trust me, Zucker had alienated dozens of the best writers and producers long before he ever hired Silverman. I don't think I can think of a more notable case of failing upwards than Zucker. Year after year I was astonished he was still there, merrily dismantling NBC, then blaming others for the mess. That was his true brilliance.

emily said...

Ken Levine should run NBC.

Somersby said...

Watch and see if he doesn't land at another network... That's the thing with these guys. Their failures mean nothing. Their name and celebrity - even if it's for all the wrong reasons - guarantees that this incestuous industry will take care of them.

D. McEwan said...

Look a the positive things he's done. I'm sorry; that was a typo. It should have read: "Look a the positive thing he's done," by which I mean leaving.

J S Swanson said...

Bye JZ.
The Peacock Network has finally Flipped you the Bird. About time .....

MattA said...

The picture of Zucker shows that he is Thu and a half days tall.

YEKIMI said...

I always thought they kept misspelling his name; I thought an "F" was supposed to go where the "Z" is.

-bee said...

In Nikki Finke's column she said Zucker was proud of "managing for margins, not programming for ratings".

Can somebody explain to me what that means?

escalante blogger said...

It's a worst nightmare for him. He should have another option in his job.

benson said...

@-bee: It's what they all do now to some degree and what damn near all radio executives do now..It's all about making that quarterly report to Wall St. look good. Greed is good.

Of course, the other side of that same arguments is: who are the investors on Wall St. Many of them are us. Walt Kelley was right. We have met the enemy and he is us.

Michael said...

As for Jeff Zucker's future, how many baseball managers get recycled? Sometimes it works--Joe Torre in New York. Sometimes it's debatable--Joe Torre in LA. Sometimes it doesn't work at all--most of them.

Ogmont Fulcrum said...

Sorry, Edward Copeland, but the Peter Principle does not mean being promoted for doing bad work. It refers to being rewarded for doing good work, by being given promotion to a level beyond your ability.