Q&A; WITH JEFF ZUCKER : He’s for Hard News, First and Foremost

In the year since he took over as executive producer of the “Today” show, Jeff Zucker has been praised for bringing new life to the venerable NBC morning program. A 27-year-old Wunderkind who has been compared to “Murphy Brown’s” Miles Silverberg, Zucker upped the hard-news ante on the show, extending segments to cover live, breaking news and experimenting with formats such as a viewer call-in with then-Presidential candidate Ross Perot.

Beginning Monday, Zucker will undertake the daunting task of being the executive producer of two daily NBC News programs: “Today” and “NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw,” which has been in third place in the network evening-news race. An intense Harvard graduate who had held various producing jobs on “Today” before being named executive producer, Zucker, in an interview in his office at the “Today” show in New York, offered a surprising view on the future of the “dinnertime” nightly newscasts.

Question: What was your reaction when NBC News executives asked you to produce both programs, and how do you plan to do both?

Answer: Well, when they first asked me about six weeks ago, my reaction was that it wasn’t humanly possible. They asked me to reconsider. I’d only been producing “Today” for a year, and I didn’t feel I was ready to leave it. But at the same time, producing the “Nightly News” was an opportunity I didn’t think I could pass up.

It’s going to be difficult to do both, but the news of the day is the same, although obviously it evolves throughout the day, and I’m going to be delegating a lot of responsibilities to the senior producers on “Today.”

Q: What kind of schedule will you be keeping?

A: Right now, I come in at about 5:30 a.m. I’m going to start coming in about 6:15 a.m. I’m still going to set the lineup of “Today” stories each day, and I’m still going to “line-produce” the show (call the shots in the control room). That would be the easiest part to give up, but that’s the most fun for me to do. When the “Today” show is over around 9 or so, I’ll start concentrating on what we’re going to do that night on “Nightly News.” I’ll get “Nightly” going, come back over here, get the “Today” show going (for the next day), go back and spend most of the (rest of the) time at “Nightly.” I’ll be staying till around 8 p.m. each night. Mentally, of course, I’ll be spending more time than that.

Q: What kind of newscast do you want to produce on “Nightly News”?

A: I want to do a hard-news broadcast, first and foremost. I think the secret of the success of “Today” recently is that we’ve done the hardest-news broadcast of the three (morning shows), and (viewers) came back to that.

We’ll have the news of the day on “Nightly News,” but I’d also like to add more live elements to take advantage of what I think is Tom Brokaw’s great rapport with both the interview subject and the audience when the show is live. I think he’s definitely the best of the three network anchors live.

I’d like to try occasional long-form segments--take a topic like gays in the military and discuss it for eight to 10 minutes. That’s something we’ve done on the “Today” show, but it would be something of a departure for a nightly newscast. And if (someone such as embattled FBI Director William Sessions) loses his job or keeps his job one day, why not have him on with Tom for an extended segment, depending upon the other news of the day? Why can’t the evening news occasionally be “Nightline” at 6:30?

Without “softening” the news, I’d like to do more stories on popular culture, music and trends, like the influence of talk shows like Rush Limbaugh’s. These are things that people talk about, that people of my generation are interested in, and I’d like to see us explore them.

Q: Do you think the traditional nightly newscasts need to change?

A: I do think the nightly newscasts need to evolve--they haven’t changed much in the last 15 years. The nightly newscasts are such traditional institutions among viewers--and such big profit-centers for the networks--that there is reasonable concern about making changes. Viewership for the nightly newscasts is up, and they’re doing well. . . .

I think we still have to fulfill the role of telling the news of the day to viewers tuning in. But the nightly newscasts need to find their relevance, their niche amidst a plethora of news sources for the future.

Q: In 10 years, will we still have the traditional dinner-hour nightly newscasts?

A: Ten years from now, I think you’ll probably have an hourlong network news at 10 p.m. leading into the local news programs at 11 p.m. I doubt if there will be the three nightly news programs in their current incarnation at 6:30 p.m.

Q: What would this program look like?

A: I think it would probably be some kind of news hour that would be maybe “PrimeTime Live” meets the “Today” show, perhaps with news, features and live segments.

Q: If you’re predicting the end of dinnertime news in 10 years, why do you want to go produce “Nightly News”?

A: The nightly newscasts may take a different form down the road, but they will continue to play a very important role for both the news division and the network. And, symbolically, the anchors are the emblem of the network in the minds of many viewers.

Producing “Nightly News” is a tremendous challenge. I like the immediacy of daily news, and I’m very excited about working with Tom Brokaw.

Q: I understand that Brokaw’s contract is up for renewal in August. Do you expect him to re-sign--and what is your response to the speculation that, because of your close relationship with Katie Couric, she’ll follow you to become the anchor of “Nightly News” at some point?

A: It’s not for me to comment on Tom’s contract, but I have every reason to believe he will re-sign. He’s the single most important person at NBC News, so I certainly hope that he’ll continue to be there. As for the scenario about Katie, it was spawned, I believe, in an article in the National Enquirer. It’s never been talked about within NBC. Being a nightly anchor wouldn’t utilize Katie’s talents to the fullest. Her greatest talents are as a live (interviewer) and shoot-from-the-hip broadcaster.

Q: Your close working relationship with both Bryant Gumbel and Couric has been said to be one of the secrets of recent success of “Today.” How do they feel about your doing both “Today” and “Nightly”?

A: Katie and Bryant are two of my best friends, honestly, and I think the way we all work together is important to the show. . . . I don’t think either of them is crazy about my doing both shows; I wouldn’t want them to be. I think they’re concerned that I might be stretching myself too thin. The “Today” show doesn’t run by rote, but there are management structures in place that are working well. And I have said that if I find I cannot do both jobs and one of the shows is suffering, I’ll step up and say this can’t be done. I’m not afraid to take some risks--and I’m not afraid to say that I can’t do something if it can’t be done.