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Righting the Ship at NBC
Andrew Lack was a producer at 60 Minutes at CBS in 1992 when his opposition at NBC blew up. Literally.
Dateline NBC had produced a story about Thomas and Elaine Moseley whose 17-year-old son, Shannon, died when his Chevy truck exploded after being T-Boned by a drunk driver. When NBC couldn’t replicate the crash, they rigged it to get the footage they wanted.
At first, NBC News president Michael Gartner called it an accurate representation. GM sued and, within weeks, Dateline‘s producers were fired, Gartner would resign, and Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips were forced to read an on-air apology.
Unfortunately for NBC, it was not an isolated incident. Later that year, a ranger in Idaho’s Clearwater Forest claimed that overharvesting lumber was fouling the streams and killing fish. NBC aired footage provided by an advocacy group that the network then misrepresented: it was actually of a fish kill from Washington State. And an area that was represented as being clearcut was really only being salvage cleared after a forest fire. Another on-air apology had to be read, this time by Tom Brokaw on Nightly News.
Andy Lack was brought in to clean up NBC and restore its reputation.
Under it’s new president, Nightly News slowly rose to the top of the ratings and Lack oversaw the launch of MSNBC as a straight news network, a place where he would groom Brian Williams to eventually succeed Brokaw in the anchor chair.
He would also move to shake up Today, where he replaced the combative Bryant Gumble with Matt Lauer and returned veterans like John Palmer to prominence after he had been dumped for the likes of Deborah Norville.
Lack’s success would eventually let him lead the entire network, but then he got greedy and aimed for the job of his boss, Bob Wright. He left NBC and landed at Sony under his former CBS boss, Howard Stringer, did a stint as the head of Bloomberg Media, and more recently was the CEO at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the government corporation that oversees The Voice of America.
In the wake of the network’s recent struggles, NBC has called on Lack to right the ship again. It started yesterday, when the network and Chief Medical Editor Nancy Snyderman “mutually agreed” to part ways. Snyderman became infamous last October when she violated quarantine after covering the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
Now, Lack must deal with Williams and his problem of self-aggrandizement, plus the ratings slide of Today and Meet the Press. He also has to deal with the distrust the division has of current president Deborah Turness and the spiraling, flaming mess that is MSNBC. Furthermore he may find that Comcast is a different animal than his old bosses at General Electric.
Published in Entertainment, General
My dad was watching that Dateline truck report. He didn’t buy for a second that that collision could have caused a fire.
He still calls Stone Phillips “Boom Boom.”
There should be a website devoted to phony, manufactured, or at least severely slanted news reports. One of my fave Two-minute Hates focusses on a piece of garbage done in the early days of ABC’s 20/20, titled “Ultralights: Flying or Dying?” While it doesn’t contain any actual, provable lies, it doesn’t contain any actual truth, in the normal sense of the word. Just attitude.
There’s two. Brent Bozell III, Bill Buckley’s nephew, runs the Media Research Center and they publish Newsbusters. There’s also Accuracy in Media.
And I should care because..? I wish Lack all the luck that he deserves, and praying that he fails miserably. A pox on all of their houses.
It could be fairly said that I do not follow media infighting in any fashion yet this is rather fascinating. Could Mr. Lack turn MSNBC around, rehabilitate Mr. Williams? What are the implications of that?
Thinking on it further, how much, either way, does the outcome matter? Traditional media outlets become more disregarded by the day compared to alternative sources. The last gasp of a sinking ship? Does a network such as NBC still have enough cachet to influence 2016?
re #4
If his goal is to clean out the corruption at NBC, then I truly wish him the best of luck from the bottom of my heart.
re #5
Last I checked, non-cable networks still dominate the news in terms of viewership. If the people watching it don’t care, why do they watch? I imagine they are at least marginally interested in news, and perhaps the election when the time comes for it to show up in the news.
It has been fashionable thinking, especially among us on the right, that the “new” media is putting the old out of business. Except that this thinking is flawed.
The biggest mistake is conflating the platform with the actual production of news. So called “new” media aggregates, regurgitates and analyzes what comes out of the old media but they do damned little actual, down in the trenches reporting. That may put a crimp in the business plans and the profitability of the legacy media but it doesn’t diminish their influence one bit.
Someone might say, I get my news from Twitter (or Rush, or Facebook, or Drudge) but it doesn’t originate there. It still originates at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the big three networks, and all the other liberal media outlets. They still can control the news cycle.
If Lack can right the ship at NBC and steer MSNBC back to its origins, that could be a win. Because the public is forcing them to more accountable, more accurate and more balanced.
Thanks EJ.
Bring back The Rat Patrol!
Mis – Rat Patrol was on ABC. In this age of media consolidation who knows who owns the rights now?
Timothy Olyphant is finished with Justified. He would look good in a jeep manning a 50 caliber machine gun.
I have no doubt he will right the ship before it sinks into the same oblivion all network TV is sinking into.
If television news is in decline, it will be a very long decline. After all, we still have newspapers.
That being said, we should only hope that while these media last, they do a good job of keeping people informed. One reason there is so much glee in the demise of television news is that it fails its primary mission.
It’s not like orchestral music, which hasn’t really has not been a dominant cultural force for a long time, but has many passionate adherents. When television news’s audience goes, there will not be replacement viewers.
The reports of this death are greatly exaggerated. Here’s why:
The SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) Services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime can not possibly produce enough stuff to sustain themselves. They crave product and it’s the networks that own it. At some point you are still paying to see their shows.
As for cable, the broadcast nets are equally well positioned. Their sales departments can still deliver total audiences by combining ad sales across a family of networks.
Just want to second EJ about Newsbusters. a site I enjoy very much and read daily.
You’d have thought that a website devoted to highlighting bias would have a limited pool of stories to talk about. But the amazing thing about Newsbusters is that the media supplies an almost endless stream of new material.
I remember from other posts how well you explain the reality of news and other content — where it comes from. As Quinn says above — it will be a long slow decline. We are happy about the decline but it won’t help us with the LIVs who are completely in their clutches — not for a long time. Thanks, EJ — for the reality check.
When you have no monopoly anymore, you must play to your audience. NBC has been doing that for decades. The problem is, they picked the wrong audience.
A network run by coastal elites produced content slanted to coastal elites. Problem is, they are numerically a dwindling class.
NBC needs someone from outside the bubble with inside the bubble experience. I wonder how much they offered Roger Ailes?
Nope never mind – no can do. Tried really really hard to care but just cannot give a [expletive] about NBC and even less about MSNBC. May a pox be upon them both.
Love,
Simon
Question EJ,
I recall in years past that there were lots of news services, API, UPI, AFP, BBC, as well as news services by the likes of Mutual News et. al.
Some have gone by the wayside but others have entered the arena, Bloomberg in 1990, etc.
Do you see any net change in the amount of raw news that is being made available? Yes, it seems to all have a Liberal slant but is there any actual decrease in news coverage?
Don’t hold back Simon, tell us how you really feel.
In Lack’s first go around as the News Division President he oversaw CNBC. The man running that network on a day-to-day basis was Roger Ailes.
Ailes was also responsible for a channel called America’s Talking, and he even hosted his own show. When GE decided to partner with MicroSoft and challenge CNN for cable news supremacy AT went away and so did Ailes.
How much different would the TV landscape look had Lack given the reigns of MSNBC to Roger instead of allowing him to leave for NewsCorp? I mean Roger was a fool, right? Who needs a third all-news channel?
Yes. There is less news and more opinion. You can see it with CNN going to more documentaries. Believe it or not they’ve even talked about scripted movies. Jeff Zucker was quoted as saying, “Some people would find it odd,” but the “CNN brand has to evolve.” When you’re name is Cable News Network, airing fiction is not supposed to be evolution.
The fractionalization of audiences has crippled news gathering. Even on the local level rival stations have entered into video sharing arrangements.
I take umbrage with your point of view. I like looking at events revealing trends. The first event was the announcement by HBO to abandon cable and go out on their own subscription service model. Why? As most producers realize producing content and being able to distribute content without contracts to distributors means one thing! More money! Taylor Swift pulls her music from music streaming services because she decided she was not receiving her fair share of listeners money. Millennials and Gen-Xers will have multiple SVOD’s cued up and still they will Torrent pirated materials. Why? They grew up with cable and the internet. The Boomer generation will not do this. They will wait dutifully for the next episode to be broadcast the following week, or wait for the movie till it is out on DVD. Why because the model we grew up with was the wait model created by big media broadcasting over the airwaves. The Millenials and Gen-Xers grew up with choice – over the air waves, cable, and internet and immediacy (However you want to view the internet, there is nothing like it’s immediacy, and now it is immediate to every corner of their lives on their mobile devices.) As older Americans die off and the newer generation grows up they will never wait for the evening news, or programing at a prescribed time. This baby boomer already knows the REAL NEWS, hours before the evening news. The evening news is boring because it just rehashes what already has been reported. There are no more scoops at the old media network level. How will old media compete with this immediacy? They have not (Too slow to see the change in delivery.) and may not. My final observation, going back to rehashing already reported news; it is not news. It is gossip, Facebook feeds, social commentary there is no news reported at six P.M. The format is more Facebook, or Yahoo not the CBS news of Dan Rather, Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley. Where are the stories of the Ukraine war, the Syrian war, the Iraq offense and treatment of ISIS prisoners? No it is modeled on what the younger generation believes is news. If you want REAL NEWS you have to go over seas where they still believe in informing their audience. Why? Because old media is trying desperately to entice youngsters to their network; failing to realize they are not watching; only the low information voters and others who have not converted to other media, or cannot convert because of finances or location.
Is it the end of old media, maybe. My experience with entrenched entities whether it is political parties, networks, unions, governments even corporations is, it is unlikely they will change, or convert before all is lost. The last breath is about self preservation, never about converting and joining. Why wouldn’t Comcast negotiate with Netflix and instead of charging them for the infrastructure to insure seamless streaming suggest rather than money they create a Netflix cable channel, or a HULU channel, or Amazon channel so they can entice young viewers back to the cable subscription model where all content is covered and paid from one bill? Why won’t Cable drop all the junk channels for a A la carte model of choice for cable subscriptions. What is wrong with threatening all those sub-standard cable channels with annihilation, or improve their content? When will the networks drop their attempts at news and just provide entertainment, broadcast it over the airwaves and then provide it over the internet? Oh wait they do this already (Pay attention!) from their own servers. The only thing they have not done is sold it to Netflix or HULU, or Amazon in a timely fashion. Why not? Because they are protecting their model instead of serving the viewer.
Stop and ask yourself why HBO is charging twice the amount that Amazon and Netflix is. It’s because that they can’t afford to alienate their cable partners. Hence HBO standalone is exactly what you’d pay for it on cable. Abandonment is not underway.
HBO and Netflix are each in the same neighborhood with 28 million subscribers, or put more bluntly, around the same amount of people that watch the evening newscasts on the big three nets. And that’s roughly half of people who solely get their TV off an antenna.
Fifty-four million rely on over-the-air television – and those people are increasingly young, urban and minority.
Again – where did the information originate?
God forbid that a business should insure their own survival and profitability!
…and Have Gun Will Travel.
Ya, just think of all the westerns and war shows on tv in those days:
12 O’clock high, Combat, Rifleman, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Wanted Dead or Alive, Bonanza, Rawhide, and so many more. My favorite of all time: I would have to go with Rawhide.
Rifleman is exclusive on Hulu. can’t watch it on Netflix (any more) or Amazon Instant Video.
Rawhide is not available for streaming anywhere, as far as I can tell.
Haven’t checked the rest, but I expect it’s similar.
Seems foolish of Hollywood, but maybe they know more about their own industry than I do.
Yes, I do exaggerate the speed, but not the final outcome I think. Netflix might not be able to produce all the content. Yet. But they’re getting to that point.
The advantage networks seem to me to have is access to broadcast air and an established studio with a lot of talent and institutional experience.
I have a feeling you know way more about TV production than I do, however. I would be interested to know your thoughts. Why couldn’t the Netflix produce sufficient content on their own?
Netflix viewer data sets Netflix apart from TV studios. With their viewer data they can allocate creative resources much better than any TV studio. All Netflix would need is the talent, and it seems they’re getting it.
Feels like to me the best thing the TV studios can do is to cut a deal with Netflix so Netflix can get access to the talent, and the studios can get access to the data.
But, Broadcast TV alone, I think, cannot survive for long.
It’s not. That’s why all the nets have their own production ends and even sell to each other. House, MD was a big hit for Fox and was produced by NBCUniversal. In the later run of the series it went almost immediately to NBC-owned USA Network.
Right now ABC has two shows on CBS, The Amazing Race and Criminal Minds.
The thing that nobody wants to think about (except for those that are paid to think about such things) is that broadcasters are the most vital link in civil defense planning. Let’s say terrorists were to unleash a biological in your hometown. Those watching broadcast and cable will be alerted. Internet streamers are screwed.
In the event of a natural disaster your local broadcaster is likewise the place to turn, both TV and radio. Destroy that and you might not be happy with the results.
That’s a good point I hadn’t thought about broadcast TV except as a media consumption platform. In a real emergency broadcast is the only way to get a message to a large number of people reliably.
I suppose I could code up an “Internet Emergency Broadcast System” kinda thing, but that assumes the internet is working.
Still though, the networks don’t have the big data of Netflix, and I think that alone will see them done in, even if they do band together.