In any NBC Universal Deal, Jeff Zucker seems to be at the Center...

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Sunday, October 4, 2009
By Biodun Iginla, BBC news - Analysis

NEW YORK

- NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker could be about to get a new boss -- and asked to explain a three-year run when his company expanded its cable business and won acclaim for its Olympic broadcasts, but failed to score a single breakout prime-time TV hit.
Zucker has much to lose in any NBC Universal deal by General Electric Co, which, according to sources, is talking to Comcast Corp about selling a majority stake in the media company.
He has spent his entire career there, starting straight out of college and taking over the chief executive's office in February 2007. At 44, he comes across as smart and hypercompetitive, harsh but self-deprecating.
"I would never underestimate the survival power of Jeff Zucker," said Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff.
"I suspect that in any deal that's going to be done, it is reasonably likely that he's intimately involved in it," he added. "That he'll make money off of it and that he sees the advantages in it for himself."
Under one plan being discussed, GE, which owns 80 percent of NBC Universal, would buy out partner Vivendi SA. It would then sell a 51 percent stake to cable company Comcast, whose CEO Brian Roberts wants to build a media powerhouse.
Whether Zucker and Roberts could work together remains to be seen. Both are tough negotiators and share an interest in dealmaking: Roberts bought Adelphia in 2005 and AT&T Broadband in 2002, while Zucker bought the Oxygen channel in 2007 and The Weather Channel last year.
Considered a patient, mild-mannered executive, Roberts might allow Zucker to remain at NBC Universal. For one thing, Zucker brings a financial acumen to the media business and is a ruthless cost cutter.
"He's had an amazing run and exhibited quite a resiliency," said Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce.
Zucker also has decades of media experience, useful to Comcast. Along with the NBC broadcast network and cable channels like Bravo, USA and MSNBC, NBC Universal owns a movie studio, local TV stations and theme parks.
PAST AND PRESENT MEDIA STARS
One name, however, that could cause a stir is Steve Burke, the current second-in-command at Comcast and a former top executive at Walt Disney Co.
"My instinct would be that Jeff Zucker probably wouldn't be part of that company -- only because Brian Roberts and Steve Burke have worked very much in concert with one another," said Michael Burgi, the editor in chief of Mediaweek, which covers the television industry
"Burke in many ways has helped Comcast move from being a pole climber, a cable operator into a multimedia company."
Other past and present media stars who could be candidates to run NBC Universal include former News Corp Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin and Tom Freston, one-time boss at Viacom Inc. Continued...
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