From http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=772&e=1&cid=772&u=/nm/20020 523/tv_nm/media_nbc_dc_12
This article tells how 37-year-old Jeff Zucker was promoted after NBC's resurgence this year, and pegs his idea to air "supersize" episodes of "Friends" as one of the reasons he was picked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Newly crowned as America's undisputed No. 1 network, NBC on Wednesday rewarded its programming chief, Jeff Zucker, by placing him in full control of its West Coast operations while reassigning his boss, Scott Sassa, to other projects.
Zucker, 37, longtime executive producer of NBC's "Today" show before being named NBC entertainment president 18 months ago, will assume the responsibilities previously handled by Sassa, including the company's production house, NBC Studios, and its licensing and syndication arm, NBC Enterprises.
Sassa, 43, will remain with NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., "working on strategic projects" and exploring "ways to extend the corporate brand," a statement from the network said.
He will report to NBC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bob Wright and to Andrew Lack, the network's president and chief operating officer.
Sassa joined the network in October 1998 as entertainment president and was promoted to NBC West Coast president the following May. He had been widely rumored to be on the verge of leaving the company as the expiration of his current contract next month neared.
Dismissing the notion that Sassa's reassignment grew out any network dissatisfaction with him, one network insider said, "He would not be staying with the company in some capacity if he were persona non grata."
'ELIMINATING REDUNDANCIES'
Instead, the company will continue to make use of Sassa's business acumen while giving Zucker greater control over all of NBC's entertainment ventures and "eliminating some redundancies," the source said.
Zucker himself said the reshuffle reflects growing ties between the network and its production and syndication arms. Of the five new series unveiled by NBC last week for its fall lineup, four were produced in whole or in part by NBC Studios.
"The fact that we did so much more with our in-house production unit, that we did so much more syndicated fare, it just makes so much more sense to have it all working together under the same roof," he told Reuters.
Still, Zucker suggested his promotion did not signal the start of any major new initiatives at the network.
"The great thing at NBC right now is there's nothing broken, and I think the key to our success this past 18 months has been great stability, and that's what we're going to continue to have."
Placing Zucker in charge of the network's entire West Coast operation returns NBC to the management model last in place when Brandon Tartikoff ran the whole division as entertainment president during the 1980s.
The shake-up comes as NBC wraps up the current TV season with a decisive first-place finish in the network ratings race, emerging from one of its strongest seasons ever after a year shaken by a major advertising slump and the Sept. 11 attacks.
NBC finished the TV season as the leading network for both overall audience and the key demographic of adult viewers under 50, the high-earning group most coveted by advertisers. NBC led its nearest rival in that category, Fox, by 33 percent. Last year, NBC finished third in the battle for young adults.
Zucker, who quickly earned a reputation as an executive willing to take risks, is widely credited with the rebound in NBC's fortunes.
Coming from NBC's news division, he was named entertainment president in December 2000 when former wunderkind Garth Ancier, who joined NBC from the WB network in 1999, was fired from the position.
STARTED AS OLYMPICS RESEARCHER
Zucker started his career at NBC 12 years earlier as a researcher for the 1988 Summer Olympics (news - web sites) and soon earned his stripes as one of the youngest executive producers on NBC's "Today" show, where he helped make it the top-rated morning news program and one of NBC's most profitable shows.
He showed his penchant for thinking outside the box when he spearheaded the introduction of "supersized" 40-minute episodes of "Friends" in February 2001. NBC made the move after CBS put its smash reality series "Survivor" in the time slot opposite "Friends."
Zucker also played a key role in developing two of NBC's biggest new hits, the coroner drama "Crossing Jordan" and the hospital comedy "Scrubs."
The nature of Sassa's new duties were not immediately made clear, and network sources said details of his job were still being defined.
There was some speculation that one of his first assignments would be to review NBC's investment in the television station group Paxson Communications Corp.
NBC acquired a 32 percent share of Paxson in 1999 for $415 million, with an option to buy a controlling stake by 2009. But Paxson has sought to block NBC's purchase last year of the Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo.