Jeff Zucker is out as the President of NBC and the new owners, Comcast, will be taking full control of this legacy network very soon. While NBC is one of the biggest names in broadcast history, buying this network is not like a billionaire buying the New England Patriots. Thanks to years of mismanagement and decisions that seem to have been made after of a bender of Schlitz, pixie sticks, and PCP, the network is in shambles. For a buyer, this is like sinking your money into the Detroit Lions and hoping for the best.
There was a considerable span of time where NBC was the dominant force in television. They were behind a long series of hit shows that included The Cosby Show, Cheers, Night Court, Will and Grace, Seinfeld, Hill Street Blues, etc. NBC’s “Must See TV” lineup gave people reasons to stay conscious on a Thursday evening that didn’t involve preparing their livers for a Friday night of clubbing. Something happened in 2004. Maybe it was the re-election of George W. Bush or maybe it was the ending of their last truly great series “Friends,” but at some point in time that year, something broke both NBC’s spirit and their brain.
It started simply enough. Then Network President, Jeff Zucker, tried to replace “Friends” with two sub standard shows, Coupling and Joey. Coupling was a British show that NBC tried to bring to an American audience. The problem was that this program was the Brits low rent version of Friends. Replacing a popular show, with something that looks a little like it, but without the charm is sort of like trying to replace your first love with a latex based product bought at a Fredrick’s of Hollywood outlet. It’s just not the same. Coupling didn’t work out and neither did the show, Joey. Building a spin-off around the least intriguing character of the Friends cast was a mistake on par with the New Coke, the show After M.A.S.H. and “Hope and Change.” After that the bad decisions just kept on coming.
They cancelled My Name is Earl (a show three years removed from its ratings peak, but still viable with over six million viewers) and replaced it with the horrible Parks and Recreation. From a ratings perspective, My Name is Earl was (at its worst) more successful then Parks and Recreation was at its best.
From 2004 to 2010, NBC was the broadcast network version of the Trail of Tears. They piled blunder on top of blunder with nonsensical moves that included trying to turn their massive layoffs of hundreds of workers and deep cost cuts into a marketing campaign. They veiled their failures in with the publicity campaign NBC 2.0. Nobody was buying this, and the networks average rating sank to 3.1. NBC followed up this marketing disaster by resurrecting such shows nobody wanted to see rise from the grave. Despite this, Knight Rider and American Gladiators were brought back from the dead. During the writers’ strike, network President, Jeff Zucker, believed it would be a good idea to go on prime time television and mock the people who actually bring to life what we see when we tune into a program.
While all of the above would be considered lethal errors, the crown jewel of incompetence that NBC managed to perpetrate involved The Tonight Show. In 2004 Zucker gave Jay Leno a five year heads up that Conan O’Brien would be taking over Johnny Carson’s seat in 2009. After leading up to the Leno/O’Brien transition for half a decade Conan only lasted 8 months as the in the job. He left the network (after they paid him $33 million to go away) and Jay Leno was reinstalled as The Tonight Show host.
This laundry list of gaffes would be acceptable for any network owned by a guy named Shemp, but not for NBC. This is something that the powers that be at Comcast probably realize, and there will probably be some big changes coming to the Peacock network.
Nobody knows what Comcast will do with the network, but just about anything they do that doesn’t involve water boarding the cast of The Office has got be an improvement on the current product. Comcast, being a cable provider, has been exposed to a diverse world of programming that is well beyond the borders of the media bubble that Zucker and his sycophants lived in. It is likely they would not have botched The Tonight Show handoff, resurrected Knight Rider, or passed on bringing Battlestar Galactica to network television.
Those of us who love television are waiting with great anticipation to see what happens to the Peacock under the new regime.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.