Can we talk about NBC for a minute?

Upfront caveat: Certain posters might work for certain media companies and those media companies might have made similar (or worse) missteps over the last few years. We've also had lots of threads to discuss them. This NBC stuff just struck me today after reading about the Farrow thing.

So, a lot has happened at the Peacock over the last year. Taken individually, I suppose you can view it as a serious of unrelated missteps. Taken as a whole ... damn. This is some run, and it has crossed both sides of the political spectrum and into sports and business.

-- Extends offer to Trump to host SNL, despite the fact that NBC Universal decided not to broadcast the Miss Universe pageant after Trump's comments about Mexicans and immigrants. Trump accepts.

-- The whole Ryan Lochte/Billy Bush Olympic mess. Bush gets to interview a bro, treats him like a bro, bro heavily embellishes details (at the very least) that later fall apart (although maybe not the whole story). NBC ends up looking very dumb.

-- NBC's Olympic coverage, in general, is described as a dumpster fire, particularly after Dan Hicks describes a female swimmer's husband as "the man responsible" for her gold medal win. Gymnastics announcer also catches hell by scolding people on Twitter that Simone Biles adoptive parents (actually her grandparents) are "not her parents."

-- Had the infamous Access Hollywood tape, where Trump boasted that women let him grab them by their pussies, four full days mulling what to do with it, before getting scooped by the Washington Post. (Post was given the audio by an NBC source frustrated that NBC might not release it.) NBC eventually fires Billy Bush.

-- Had Jimmy Fallon rubbing candidate Trump's hair like a gleeful schoolboy, well after he'd called Mexicans rapists (although some, I'm sure, are good people!) which resulted in considerable criticism Fallon had normalized Trump. Fallon refused to do Trump jokes for quite some time, until he fell behind Colbert in the ratings and then he changed course and started incorporating Trump jokes into his act. He's now fallen to third place behind Colbert and Kimmel, and his penchant for "safe" comedy is often cited as a reason why.

-- Hired Megyn Kelly when she left Fox News, paying her somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million per year. Gets rid of Tamron Hall in the process, despite the fact that her show is successful, leading to some whitewashing criticism. One of Kelly's first acts was to do softball interviews with Vladamir Putin and Alex Jones, crazy dictator and crazy huckster, respectfully. Both interviews get bad, bad reviews. Meanwhile, Kelly's ratings are a disaster for the network.

-- Lets Rachel Maddow hype that her show has obtained Trump's tax returns, and implies it will be a game-changer, a tweet that backfires considerably when it turns out (after a 20-minute monologue) she has an old tax return that shows Trump paid exactly what he should have been paying. Valuable information, certainly, but presented poorly.

-- Creates a minor mess by letting Lawrence O'Donnell twist in the wind. Huffington Post says he won't be renewed despite strong ratings; report goes unanswered for two weeks; eventually, O'Donnell does get renewed.

-- NBC's Ronan Farrow begins investigative story about Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and sexual assault of women in Hollywood; Farrow even gets so far as to have on-camera interviews with some accusers; NBC decides not to run what Farrow has; The New Yorker eventually publishes Farrow's piece along with audio of Weinstein begging Italian actress to come to his room and 'not embarrass him.' CNN reports that Farrow was told to "stand down" and not pursue the story.

How NBC gave up Ronan Farrow's explosive Harvey Weinstein scoop

-- Lorne Michaels decides to spike jokes about Harvey Weinstein saying Harvey is a "New York story" that won't resonate with a national audience.


I may be missing a few.

 

I think some that is apples and oranges - different divisions with different people overseeing things. My bigger problem (and I think this has led to more than a few of their problems) is that they hype the hell out of their personalities to the effect that the network's personalities ARE the product rather than journalism.
The Today show "family" crud. The Morning Joe situation. They really don't talk about their journalism that much, so when one of their personalities screws up (Brian Williams) it really impacts the brand.

Lester Holt is great. Chuck Todd is great - but the screamers and preeners get most of the attention. When I think of NBC News, I think of print ads touting their people, not the stories they break.

 

You missed one: Johnny Miller is ego maniacal has been who wasn't nearly as good as he thinks he was. Yo, Johnny ... you shot 63 at Oakmont because it rained all night and you were in an early group so no spike marks on the greens.

 

The history of network TV is that of total mediocrity mixed in with outright fools. Occasionally, a smart guy like Roone Arledge gets in there and his network runs the table. Andrew Lack, head of NBC News, is one of the fools.

 

Solid roundup.
Are you just throwing this together as a catchall of recent NBC fuck ups or are you framing a "vast right-wing conspiracy" theory?

It reads to me a lot like ESPN; A network bleeding viewers, advertisers and revenue and trying desperately - and in large part failing - to turn things around.

 

And why is CNN a clown circus right now? Reason No. 1:

Jeff Zucker. Jeffrey Adam "Jeff" Zucker (born April 9, 1965) is the current president of CNN. He previously served as president and CEO of NBC Universal. Zucker has also served as an executive in residence at Columbia Business School.

 

Where are they outtakes and edits from a decade of Trump on The Apprentice. They’ve been as quiet as Marla Maples

 

Maddow overhyping the tax stuff, Tamron Hall getting pushed out for Megyn Kelly and the Harvey story being killed by the NBC higher ups is part of a right wing conspiracy?

ESPN and NBC both made billions in profit (not revenue) last year. Not sure the "narrative" is quite what Twitter personalities want people to believe. But certainly your point is noted.

 

I liked the twist on The Good Place. Otherwise, yeah, not a great run for the network the past couple years or so.

 

Dude, it would be appropriate if that happened on NBC...

Damn.

 

This Is Us would have to be considered a success