Zucker’s NBC places distant 4th in U.S. network ratings

“Overall the week [in U.S. network TV] belonged to Fox, which scored big with its coverage of the Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies. All four games of the Red Sox sweep landed in the top 15, with the Game 4 audience totaling nearly 21 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research,” The Associated Press reports.

“NBC didn’t have such a good week, particularly without its usual Sunday night football. It averaged about half of Fox’s viewers, to claim a puny fourth-place showing among the networks,” AP reports. “NBC’s new reality series ‘Phenomenon’ ranked a not-so-phenomenal 45th place.”

“Once deemed a budding hit with a debut audience of 13.9 million viewers, ‘Bionic Women’ in its fifth airing sank to 7.81 million. ‘Chuck,’ another NBC freshman, had only 7.22 million — with the network’s other two fall entries, ‘Life’ and ‘Journeyman,’ logging even smaller viewerships,” AP reports. “And NBC’s ‘Friday Night Lights’ had fewer viewers (5.81 million) than three editions of ‘Destilando Amor,’ a weeknight telenovela on the Spanish-language Univision.”

“For the week in prime time, Fox won with an average of 13.78 million viewers (8.6 rating, 14 household share), followed by ABC with 11.19 million (7.4 rating, 12 share) and, close behind, CBS with 11.17 million (7.2 rating, 12 share). NBC was far back with 7.00 million (4.4 rating, 7 share),” AP reports.

Full article here.

Perhaps NBC President and CEO Jeff Zucker ought to pay some attention to his day job? With NBC’s performance lodged firmly in the crapper, it’s no wonder that Zucker greedily lusts for undeserved iPod hardware royalties from Apple. How’s he going to get them by dangling content that nobody’s watching?

50 Comments

  1. someone might need to explain to Zucker that one must have something that people want in order to have a leg up in negotiations. I don’t miss NBC from itunes and it looks like not many people will.

    MDN MW: set, as in game.set…(match to apple)

  2. This guy is such a loser. Great strategy – you’re in last place, point to the others as the reason you can’t be successful.

    Jack Welch needs to come out of retirement and take this guy to the wood shed. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

  3. Well I can only speak for myself, but last year I bought every heroes episode as well as tuning in the night they aired (did the same for BSG on Sci-Fi which is also under NBC/Universal) and I’m refusing to tune in. I’ll just rent the season on Netflix when that comes out or just see it at a friends house. But I’m pissed about having iTunes removed as an option for me since I travel a lot and stupid online offerings like Hulu aren’t an option. And I DON’T want to watch commercials, so I’m fine paying $1.99, but asking for any more than that when the cost comes out to be higher than buying the damn DVDs (AND doesn’t cost them nearly as much to produce because there is no physical media, no shipping, etc…) is just ridiculous and out of the question.

    (mother)Zucker and Bronfman from Warner have both got to go. Greedy bastards.

  4. I’m sorry, where was NBC again…

    1. Dancing with the Stars – Mon (ABC)
    2. World Series – Game 4 (FOX)
    3. Desperate Housewives (ABC)
    4. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
    5. House (FOX)
    6. Dancing with the Stars – Tues (ABC)
    7. NCIS (CBS)
    8. World Series – Game 2 (FOX)
    9. World Series – Game 1 (FOX )
    10. CSI: Miami (CBS)
    11. Criminal Minds (CBS)
    12. CSI (ABC)
    13. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC)
    14. Survivor (CBS)
    15. World Series – Game 3 (FOX)
    16. Two and a Half Men (CBS)
    17. CSI: NY (CBS)
    18. Samantha Who? (ABC)
    19. World Series – Game 5 Pregame (FOX)
    20. 60 Minutes (CBS)

  5. Oh man, so now we have to endure NBC stories completely unrelated to Apple because MDN feels the need to smear Zuckers character due to his iTunes comments? I love Macs, but the condescending elitist attitudes really do exist within this community.

    Zucker is the new Balmer.

  6. So much for Zucker thinking that audiences are Zuckers, they have voted with their remote controls and sent a clear message to NBC.

    Stick to your core business, and they will come!!!

    Emulate success is the best policy not envy it.

    Finally if he wants to earn ipod royalties, then he should build it, & they will come! ie. If he buids NBC back up to No.1, then all his viewers will come bringing with them the advertiser & program buyers from around the global networks.

  7. I’m with Mobl1 – travel a lot, some of NBC’s offerings are enjoyable, but Zucker’s gotta go- Hulu is useless to me, and I HATE watching ads in content- the lack of is a big plus for both TV on DVD and TV on iTunes. $1.99 is a fair price; when introduced, everyone thought it was too high to work with the public. It’s sometimes a little cheaper than the DVD, but the portability is the selling point- if you’ve got several PC’s authorized.

    Unfortunately, NBC makes content that is sold to Fox and others, and that availability will be affected, too. I can sit this out, though, to make sure Zucker get’s the message.

  8. Like I said yesterday, this “Let’s throw some shit at the wall and see how much sticks” reality TV B.S., combined with the game-shows-in-primetime-targeted-at-adults mentality is contributing to the dumbing-down of America and those of us with half a brain are in open rebellion against it. Hence NBC’s piss-poor ratings these days.

    Fuck Zuck. My $.02.

    Peace.
    Olmecmystic ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

  9. This guy should be gone soon. The GE board will soon realize that Apple is not NBC’s problem, NBC’s problem is the horrible shows they create. I can hardly even watch the Office anymore and that is the only show I watch on TV. We should boycott NBC until they put shows on Itunes again.

  10. @ChrisM,
    Admit it, you’re a dork–I love that MDN calls a spade “a spade” when confronted by the Zuckers, Bronfmans and Eisners of the world. It’s not elitist–spiteful, maybe–but not elitist. (And a little web-based spite is a good thing.)
    ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
    MW: “fact,” as in, it’s a fact that Zucker, et al., should pay for their greedy incompetence. Nothing wrong with that!

  11. I like ‘Life’, even though I hate the title. So there’s one. And then the Battlestar problem…. But, from what I’ve seen of BG:Razor- it’s a dog, so that solves some of it. Of course, the Series skewed things entirely, and CBS didn’t bother to battle, putting on reruns. The real test is the next few weeks, but it don’t look good for NBC, which was the first network, ya know.

  12. Wow.
    That’s not just behind. That’s WAAAAY behind. That’s not even close to 3rd.

    #3 11.17 million
    #4 (NBC) 7.00 million.

    GE’s corporate philosophy (at least once) was always not to be in a market they couldn’t be #1 or #2 in. Now flagship network performance isn’t a measure of the whole of NBCU, but still… not even close to #3 hardly meets GE standards.

    Apple should offer to buy them out… haha.
    Yes, I know, SJ is waaay to smart and frugal for that.

    Still… Apple could. Isn’t that an amazing thought.

  13. Sounds like ChrisM has a condescending elitist attitude. Who was it that started the whole “brewhaha” (intentionally mispelled)? I suppose Apple because they wanted to keep things the same? Seeds sown have a wonderful way of coming back as bitter fruit to the ones who plant them for the wrong reason. Are Balmer or Dell happy about their words biting them in their back-side? Does that make me an elitist when I can remind Laura Goldman of her call to sell Apple stock at under 110$ ? Where is the outrage over her costing investors millions who were foolish enough to listen to her? OOOPs, I judged the investors foolish who listened to her. How do you know that this isn’t Zuckers punishment that he may or may not deserve in your eyes to teach him a lesson against greed? It sounds to me like you Chris are setting yourself up to be the JUDGE and JURY of a community of happy customers of Apple.

    Lighten Up!

  14. “Oh man, so now we have to endure NBC stories completely unrelated to Apple because MDN feels the need to smear Zuckers character due to his iTunes comments? I love Macs, but the condescending elitist attitudes really do exist within this community. “

    ChrisM, you are entirely correct. The MDN takes continue on in their childish vein. It hurts, not helps, getting people to switch with that attitude.

  15. Its not only what you say, but how you say it that makes you condesceding or elitist. I think we all agree that Zucker is wrong for pulling out of iTunes, that NBC isn’t doing well, and that hulu will most likely fail. That doesn’t mean I have to vilify him or take cheap shots. Talk about one of the things thats wrong with America today…. everyone seems to think thier opponents need to be cast as demons.

  16. How about telling shareholders “We are going to embrace the web, saving millions on hulu.com by dumping it, and putting ALL our movies and TV shows on iTunes on all stores around the world”.

    First on cable, one month later on DVD, one month later on iTunes then one month later on free-to-air. We sell it all four tunes all at no cost to us!

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