NBC: Bush kept off network to promote MSNBC; Zucker: NBC News becoming MSNBC, MSNBC.com

[DeepModem Mom]

USA Today/AP: NBC: Bush kept off network to promote MSNBC
By David Bauder, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK — NBC News said it was a desire to promote MSNBC as a news destination that led to its decision Thursday not to carry President Bush's news conference on NBC. The call to keep Bush off the broadcast network was noteworthy not just because ABC and CBS pre-empted regularly scheduled programming to cover the president, but because NBC was airing another news division program at the time — the fourth hour of Today.

"We're trying to make MSNBC the place to go for NBC News, and the strategy is working," said Phil Griffin, NBC News senior vice president....

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Griffin said it made no difference that NBC was already carrying a news program at the time of the president's 10 a.m. ET session. During that hour, Today aired a segment on Animal Planet's Rhino Nights and tips for saving money. On the West Coast, where the news conference aired during the first Today hour, Ann Curry reported on it during news updates, he said.

Bush was carried live on NBC cable stations MSNBC and CNBC. That's an option that ABC and CBS, without sister cable stations, does not have. It would be wrong to pretend like it's 1980 and viewers interested in the president didn't have other options, Griffin said.

The corporate decision to pump up MSNBC was also why Tuesday's presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was carried on cable instead of the network, he said. With nearly 8 million viewers, it was the most-watched program in MSNBC's history and will be rerun twice over the weekend....

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-02-28-NBC-bush_N.htm

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Broadcasting&Cable: Jeff Zucker to Print Reporters: Drop Dead
NBC Universal CEO on MSNBC, NBC News, Fox Business Network, the Newspaper Industry and CNBC
By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/28/2008

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

“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....

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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/CA6536380.html

[morningglory]

1. Soooo, how's come every time I am looking for some Keith Olbermann,

all I can find is Tweety slinging spit, Snake Lips Scarborough ruining my morning coffee telling Jimmy Carter to just "go home!", or "Lockdown at Angola". Forgive me, all you snakes out there. I feel better now.

[Berry Cool]

2. Obviously, they have a ways to go.

But at least they have a vision and an idea of how to achieve it. And there's been no more talk of shuttering MSNBC altogether, or of getting rid of all its news programming and turning it into the "Crime and Prison Documentary Network" with endless reruns of "Lockup" and "To Catch a Predator."

It wasn't so long ago that that's what was being rumored was going to happen. Now the vision is different. The goal appears to be to make MSNBC and NBC more economical by downsizing the news a bit at NBC and moving other news resources to MSNBC. Thus branding MSNBC more as the place to go for news, which leaves NBC free to do more entertainment. Makes a lot of sense. It also recognizes that the future of network news is probably not some 6:30 p.m. show that only old people watch.

Disney has a similar thing going with ABC/ESPN. ABC used to be the place to go for sports in the three-network world of the past. Then cable came along and with it ESPN, and those days were done. But with ABC and ESPN part of the same entity, you can have both a place for entertainment AND a place for sports. And once in a while bring the sports over from ESPN to ABC.