NBC Fires Top Booking Executive for Sexual Misconduct

NBC Universal has fired one of its top executives whose job was to oversee guest bookings on shows such as Today, and other news and entertainment programs.

The network fired Senior Vice President for Booking, News & Entertainment Matt Zimmerman after he was accused of “inappropriate conduct” with more than one woman, The Wrap reported on Tuesday.

“We have recently learned that Matt Zimmerman engaged in inappropriate conduct with more than one woman at NBCU, which violated company policy,” NBC said in a statement. “As a result, he has been dismissed.”

Zimmerman, who first came to NBC in 2004, joins political commentator Mark Halperin on the NBC unemployment line with both being released over accusations of sexual harassment of female employees.

The fallout continues after an explosive October story revealing decades of abuse by Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was published by NBC reporter Ronan Farrow. But, while Farrow may be an NBC reporter, NBC did not get the scoop on the Weinstein story because the network mysteriously took a pass on Farrow’s article.

After the story published by the New Yorker became the talk of the country, NBC insisted it was right to pass on the piece because executives had “concerns” over the sourcing of the accusations.

While some were suspicious that NBC was just trying to protect Weinstein, as many hundreds of Hollywood elites had done for three decades, the network claimed that Farrow’s story was not ready for publication. The impact the story published in New Yorker had upon release also causes suspicion over NBC’s motivations.

Still, NBC News boss Noah Oppenheim claimed that the story as presented to them originally was “not the story that we were looking at when we made our judgment several months ago.”

“The notion that we would try to cover for a powerful person is deeply offensive to all of us,” Oppenheim added.

This is a characterization Farrow strongly disputes.

“It is not accurate to say it was not reportable” at NBC News, Farrow told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last month. “In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.