(NBC Prez) Jeff Zucker to Print Reporters: Drop Dead (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

he future of NBC News is not on the broadcast network, but at MSNBC and online, said Jeff Zucker, president of CEO of NBC Universal. Jeff Zucker

“We are just living in an incredibly different world,” Zucker said during a question-and-answer session at Harvard Business School’s 2008 Entertainment and Media Conference Wednesday.

Pointing out that few people in the audience of students, faculty and media gathered there likely watch the 6:30 p.m. newscast, Zucker said NBC News is lucky to have a cable-news outlet in MSNBC, adding that more and more content will continue to migrate there and to MSNBC.com.

“The definition of NBC News is really changing,” he added, “and it’s becoming more MSNBC and MSNBC.com.”

He also took print journalists to task for “disproportionately” harping on downsizing at NBC News in the face of declining viewership for broadcast news in general.

“When we try to evolve NBC News, a lot of people want to write about that,” he said, suggesting that newspaper reporters’ seeming obsession with the declining fortunes of the TV-news business was a bit of schadenfreude.

“The thing they want is for the [TV-news] business to die faster [than the newspaper business], because that’s what makes them feel better,” he added.

Zucker also mused on News Corp.’s $ 5 billion acquisition of Dow Jones and its crown jewel, The Wall Street Journal.

“Obviously, Dow Jones is a fantastic company,” he said. “Whether it’s worth the price News Corp. paid for it, time will tell. It’s easier to pay that price when the only shareholder you care about is the one you see in the mirror every day,” he quipped, referring to News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch.

He conceded that News Corp.'s Fox Business Network -- which will surely mine the talent at The Wall Street Journal once the newspaper’s exclusive content agreement with CNBC expires in 2012 -- has been healthy competition for CNBC.

“It made our game better,” he added. “And it brought more attention to CNBC than we could have ever bought.”

Zucker started his climb up the NBC corporate ladder at the news department as the network’s youngest-ever (he was 26) executive producer of Today.

His comments came as MSNBC posted its highest ratings in its 11-year history Tuesday night with more than 7 million viewers tuning in for the last scheduled Democratic debate between Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).

“I think [MSNBC has] found its identity,” Zucker said. “Politics is their calling card.”

But he acknowledged that there have been “some mistakes along the way,” referring to comments made by David Shuster and Chris Matthews about Chelsea and Hillary Clinton, respectively. “You can’t be on 24 hours a day and not make some mistakes, some misstatements,” he added.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6536318.html?desc=topstory

NBCU’s Zucker Maintains Commitment to Streamlined Pilot System
NBC Universal CEO Speaks at Harvard Business School’s Entertainment & Media Conference
By Marisa Guthrie — Broadcasting & Cable, 2/28/2008 11:51:00 AM

It may be business as usual in Hollywood in the wake of the 100-day writers’ strike. But NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker reiterated his commitment to turn the strike into an opportunity to streamline a costly pilot system that is rife with waste.
Jeff Zucker

“Hollywood is a town based on inertia,” he said. “There are a lot of mansions built in that town on the same old system.”

Zucker’s comments came during a question-and-answer session at Harvard Business School’s Entertainment & Media conference in Boston.

The company’s recent announcement about a scaled-back pilot season and a 52-week schedule was ridiculed by rival network executives as spin from the fourth-place network. Fox scheduling chief Preston Beckman, for one, pointed out that his network has been programming on a year-round model for quite some time.

Zucker said the 52-week schedule and the decision to forgo NBC’s annual upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall was the result of “honest conversations” with advertisers.

“We’re going to present a schedule that is much more realistic and honest,” he said, adding that the announcement was a “little misunderstood” by NBC’s rivals.

Advertisers have long advocated for a real picture of network schedules during the upfront selling season. And as reruns have become less viable in a fragmented media universe, the schedules the networks unveil during upfront week in May have come to bear little resemblance to what is actually on-air come November.

Advertisers have also long questioned the usefulness of the elaborate upfront presentations and after parties.

“What we decided,” Zucker said, “was to finally take them up on what they’ve been telling us for many years.”

Zucker also stressed the network’s commitment to current The Tonight Show with Jay Leno host Jay Leno, who is due to hand over the reins of the venerable program to Conan O’Brien in 2009.

“We’d love for Jay to be with us forever,” he said, “and obviously, we’ll have those conversations with him [about a new show] and time will tell.”

Several rival networks including Fox and ABC, as well as Sony, have quietly expressed interest in making a home for Leno, whose ratings have continued to surge even during the strike when he went on sans writers and continued to beat rival David Letterman, who was able to mount his show with his Writers Guild of America staff thanks to a side deal with the union.

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