Zucker Wraps a Good Run

Katie Couric has a distinct memory of the guy assigned to produce her segments when she first joined NBC’s “Today” show in 1990 as a national correspondent.

“He had on this gray sweatshirt, bluejeans and white Keds that I thought only girls wore,” recalled Couric, now co-host of the network’s venerable morning show. “I thought he was the cockiest guy I had ever met. I wasn’t that excited about it. He was so young, and so cocky. And I thought he was a bit of a dweeb.”

More than a decade later, that dweeb, Jeff Zucker, is being talked about as a potential successor to NBC Chairman Bob Wright, 60, although Wright isn’t going anywhere just yet. Zucker has swapped his sneakers for dress shoes, but he has retained his reputation as one of the entertainment industry’s most ambitious executives, a Harvard graduate who has been on a fast track since he skipped second grade.

Last month, Zucker’s considerable powers were broadened at NBC, which is owned by General Electric Co. In addition to his oversight of the network’s entertainment division, he was put in charge of news and cable programming, including lagging MSNBC. Industry veterans predict that the ascent of the 38-year-old probably will continue with NBC’s upcoming takeover of Vivendi Universal’s entertainment properties.

“He’s going to take over the world,” laughed Couric, now a Zucker fan.

TV producer Gavin Polone, who at times has been at odds with Zucker, generally agreed.

“He’s a guy who could run GE someday,” said Polone, an executive producer of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and WB’s “Gilmore Girls.” “He understands the politics and the media, and he gets the macro point of view that you need to run a large corporation.”

Zucker, in a recent interview, downplayed such talk, saying: “I am incredibly content being where I am.”

Now based in Burbank, Zucker will return to New York this spring having accomplished most of what he had set out to do when he was named president of NBC Entertainment three years ago.

During his tenure, NBC raked in nearly $1.5 billion in prime-time profit, which pleased Zucker’s supporters in the parent company. The network has established a beachhead in the so-called reality-show genre with “Fear Factor.” And most important to Zucker, NBC could finish this season at the top of the heap in the category most important to advertisers -- viewers age 18 to 49 -- even though the network’s prime-time ratings are down 11%.

He did come up short on one important front: finding a hit replacement for “Friends,” which ends its stellar 10-year run in May. But Zucker managed to squeeze every ounce of juice from the popular show, keeping NBC in the hunt against its surging competitor CBS.

Zucker relishes the rivalry among the networks, frequently crowing about NBC’s supremacy among young adult viewers and grabbing headlines from his foes, whom he loves to needle.

His penchant for stirring the pot was evident during an otherwise bland breakfast forum in November in New York with other network executives. Zucker said some of the programming on his network “just sucked.”

That comment bruised many an ego back in Hollywood. But then Zucker has always cast himself as an outsider.

Although he rented a house with a Beverly Hills zip code, he flew home to Manhattan most weekends. He shed neckties and became friendly with producers and agents, though it was always clear he was shooting for the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NBC’s headquarters.

The launch pad was the “Today” show.

In 1992, with Couric as co-host, Zucker at 26 became the program’s executive producer, the youngest ever. Couric said he “stripped away some of the veneer of doing a live show,” giving the audience a peek at how chaotic things could be.

“If Whoopi Goldberg didn’t show up for an interview, then he’d call her up so we could talk to her while she was stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge,” Couric said. “He was always excited about every story, and gave us wings to do a great job.”

With Zucker at the controls, “Today” soon surpassed ABC’s “Good Morning America” and widened its lead in the morning show sweepstakes. “Today” soon became NBC’s biggest moneymaker, minting $250 million a year in profit.

Everything followed Zucker’s script for success until 1996, when he was diagnosed with colon cancer just a few months after getting married. He had surgery and chemotherapy, and chemo again three years later when doctors discovered the cancer had come back. Since then, it has not returned.

The following year, in December 2000, Wright dispatched Zucker to Burbank to try to rescue the network’s entertainment division. The network had staggered through a bad fall season. Morale was low and relations with New York were frayed.

NBC executives in Burbank say Zucker quickly created a collaborative environment in which opinions and ideas were broadly solicited and decisions were made in a straightforward manner. When mistakes were made -- such as when Zucker confused viewers last year by running the show “Kingpin” twice a week -- he took the heat instead of blaming his scheduling chief.

“Jeff is very good at motivating his troops. They definitely are more focused than they have been in recent years,” said Erwin More, a senior vice president for the William Morris Agency.

NBC’s new prime-time program development chief, Kevin Reilly, recalled being wary of joining NBC at a time when it was struggling with developing new programs, but quickly became a Zucker disciple.

“He’s one of the most competitive guys I’ve ever met,” Reilly said. “But he makes it kind of infectious. You want to get on his side and fight with him.”

Zucker learned he needed the help because the terrain in Burbank proved slippery.

A few years ago, more than 90% of the TV sets in the nation’s homes tuned in regularly to the networks. Now it’s about 60%, with many viewers moving more often toward such niche channels as ESPN, MTV or the Discovery Networks than to NBC, CBS or Fox. Basic cable channels pull in more viewers than the six major networks.

“Jeff faced a difficult challenge,” said Don Ohlmeyer, a former NBC West Coast president. “It’s much more difficult to aggregate a large audience than it was six years ago, or even two years ago. People always say a network is just one hit away. But one hit isn’t going to make a difference anymore.”

One hit was, in fact, very important to NBC’s fortunes: “Friends.” Zucker spent much of his time in Hollywood finding ways to extract every ounce of opportunity from the show.

A month on the job, Zucker visited the “Friends” set to charm the star-studded cast into going along with his new marketing trick. Zucker wanted to make the show eight minutes longer, at no additional cost to NBC. Thus was born “supersizing.”

By stretching several episodes to 42 or more minutes, the scheme provided extra time for commercials and promos for other NBC shows, not to mention much higher ratings.

Viewers would miss the program’s ending if they switched channels to watch shows that began at regular times on other networks.

For the idea, Zucker probably drew on his days in the “Today” control room. He often would let Couric or co-host Matt Lauer run long if their interviews were good, then ditch a later segment to compensate.

Zucker simply let his good Thursday night shows run long, thus eliminating the need for his weaker ones. “Supersizing” during sweeps months helped Zucker maintain NBC’s dominance.

A year ago, Zucker turned to his good “Friends” again. The show was scheduled to end its run in May 2003, and story lines were winding up for a big finale (would Rachel choose Ross or Joey?) But Zucker did not have a strong replacement show. So he begged the producers and cast to return for one more season. In December 2002, they reached an agreement worth nearly $180 million for 18 episodes for this season.

“Jeff was very persistent,” said Nancy Josephson, a president of International Creative Management, which packaged the show. “He just kept working it and working it. He would not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

But nothing in Zucker’s bag of tricks could stop the advance of CBS. His high-profile arch rival, CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves, began his assault as soon as Zucker arrived in Burbank in January 2001. Although Moonves had once tried to woo Zucker to run CBS’ news division, Moonves took off his gloves. He moved his big hit “Survivor” to Thursday nights and later added “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” which is TV’s most popular show.

NBC and CBS share dominance on Thursday night, with “Friends” and “ER” providing NBC its port in the CBS storm.

This fall, NBC took an even bigger beating. All of the major networks, except for Fox Broadcasting, have watched young adult viewers drift away this season, but NBC has declined the most. NBC’s marquee shows have lost millions of viewers. “Friends” is down 25% in the 18-to-49 demographic, “ER” is down 17%, “Will & Grace” is down 22% and “Frasier” is down 29%. However, because NBC has so outpaced the competition in this demographic it is still likely to draw more young viewers than the other networks.

“NBC is seeing the signs of what’s been building over the past few seasons,” said Stacey Lynn Koerner, global research director for Initiative, a major advertising buying firm. “They don’t have any strong new shows to pick up the slack for their aging programs.”

Although NBC still boasts eight of the Top 10 shows, “when they lose ‘Friends’ next year, that could change their fortunes dramatically,” Koerner said. “It will be CBS’ game.”

Zucker dismisses such fortune-telling.

“People have been predicting our failure for years, and here we are four years later, still on top,” Zucker said. “Everyone gets so focused on ‘Friends,’ but we feel that we have enough firepower to be in good shape next year.”

In his new job, Zucker still will be in charge of entertainment but he has handed program development duties to Reilly, who demonstrated a knack for finding gems such as “The Shield” and “Nip/Tuck” at News Corp.’s FX network.

Reilly already has introduced a different focus. Taking a back seat are star-vehicle shows such as this season’s “Lyon’s Den,” featuring Rob Lowe, which whimpered in the ratings, and modest performers such as “Miss Match” with Alicia Silverstone and “Whoopi,” starring comedian Whoopi Goldberg.

Zucker’s efforts at building shows around celebrities, including chef Emeril Lagasse and former “Seinfeld” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, didn’t last long.

“History has proven that some of the biggest hits have come from some of the most unlikely places,” Reilly said, mentioning such NBC all-time greats as “Hill Street Blues,” “Seinfeld,” “West Wing,” and “Law & Order.”

As Zucker prepares to move back to New York in May, as this season wraps up, he said he would not trade the experiences of his Hollywood tour of duty.

“Certainly there have been ups and downs, but I love a great challenge and this has been one,” Zucker said. “We’ve had a terrific run.”

Couric put a different spin on it.

“It’s been a humbling experience for him,” she said. “It’s such a tough time to be in that part of the business. But it’s been a great experience for him, it’s made him a little more sanguine.”