U.S.A.
Everyone Else
Health
Science
Business
Technology
Sports
Video Games
Entertainment
Future
Humour
NEWS > BUSINESS > JEFF ZUCKER REPORTEDLY ON HIS WAY OUT BUT STILL AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME
JEFF ZUCKER REPORTEDLY ON HIS WAY OUT BUT STILL AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME
June 14 2010
Los Angeles, CA – There are few people that could have expected that television would have become the massive industry it has become. In the early days the technology was severely limited and the content less than stellar and while a 
fascination for many, was hardly competition for, say, the movie industry. After only a few short years on the market though the brain trust had laid out a profit model and through that created stars which in turn brought more and more people to the square screen, eventually leading to the billion dollar industry we now have.
For years there was one network that was at the top of that money heap, NBC. For decades, with hit shows like ‘The Cosby Show’, ‘Cheers’, Seinfeld, ‘ER’, and ‘Friends’ the network more or less owned the industry. Their utter domination of the Thursday night line up sent the other networks fleeing and, alongside other hits such as ‘The Tonight Show’, itself a major reason the medium became a hit at all, the network became the king of the industry. Of course kings fall and so too has NBC with record low profits and virtually no good will amongst viewers, the network has become a whipping boy for even upstarts like TBS 
and HBO. Now reports indicate that the puppet master behind that chaos, Jeff Zucker, is on his way out having firmly accomplished what he set out to do when he took the reins in 2005.
“It’s pretty much a done deal. Comcast is just about to take over the network and they want their own guy in charge. This kind of thing always happens in mergers, people always get pushed out, and that is what is happening with Zucker. Luckily he was able to accomplish everything he set out to do,” said an NBC insider. “He’s actually totally content with the whole thing, partially due to the fact that he’s going to get at least 30 million to leave, but he feels that he has done everything he set out to do. Even the money wouldn’t have made up for things if he felt that he wasn’t going out on top.”
Under his reign, the network saw a 28 percent decline in profits and the ouster of talk show host Conan O’Brien.
“This has really been one of the most remarkable runs by a CEO in corporate history. Not just television, but industry as a whole. He took the number one network to dead last and bled virtually all the profits from investors. No one has ever been able to do so much in such a small amount of time and you have to give him credit for that,” said Scrape TV Business analyst Ken Green. “No one could possibly have done this level of damage accidentally and so it has to be seen as a masterstroke, an incredible success story that few people could ever have dreamed of. This is his masterpiece.”
Zucker has been vocal about his desire to stay in the industry but no plans have yet surfaced.
“When you first look at his run it appears to be a debacle, a screw on a ridiculous level but we haven’t seen the end game. You look at Zucker and you know something is going on behind those beady little eyes and just because we don’t know what that plan is doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” continued Green. “No one could have done this kind of thing without having a purpose, even if it was just to see things burn to the ground. Whatever his end goal is or was he has done incredible work here and it will be felt for years to come.”
NBC had no comment.
William Ashford, Business Correspondent
NEWS > BUSINESS > JEFF ZUCKER REPORTEDLY ON HIS WAY OUT BUT STILL AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME
LINK IT! http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Business/pages-4/Jeff-Zucker-reportedly-on-his-way-out-but-still-at-the-top-of-his-game-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side.html |
TWEET IT! http://bit.ly/9ynrAa |
BOOKMARK IT!  
|
|---|
Scrape Store
