General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Chief Executive Jeff Immelt's has given Jeff Zucker plenty of chances to improve NBC Universal. Now, it's time for someone else to run the media conglomerate.
Though NBC's performance is showing signs of improvement, it continues to be one of the laggards in the GE portfolio. Investors are clamoring for the Fairfield, Conn.-based company to spin-off or sell the media conglomerate. NBC prime time ratings are stagnant and still overly dependent on the "Law and Order" franchise. While I am a huge fan of "Scrubs" and "My Name is Earl," I realize that the quirky humor of those sitcoms may not appeal to everyone.
Yesterday, Zucker reshuffled the top management at NBC, ousting programming head Kevin Reilly and replacing him with with Ben Silverman and Mark Graboff. Maybe Zucker thought Reilly, whose contract was recently extended, was working too hard. I'm surprised that Zucker didn't escape the axe himself.
Indeed, anytime a company fills a job that one person did with two or more people, that's a bad sign. It's a recipe for instability and will guarantee turf battles between high-powered executives. However, this does allow Zucker the chance to spread blame around to more people when things go wrong or don't go right fast enough.
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