Zucker Defends Cramer, Olbermann, Leno Move

Jeff Zucker just concluded a Q&A with BusinessWeek's Ellen Pollock at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit, where the NBC Universal CEO fielded questions about Jim Cramer's credibility issues, Jay Leno's move to 10 p.m. and MSNBC's leftward drift. Lots of good stuff. Some highlights:

-Pollock started by asking Zucker about Cramer's flame war with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, which ended with Stewart dismantling the Mad Money star last Thursday. Zucker's take:

I thought it was incredibly unfair to CNBC and to the business media in general, including BusinessWeek, because I don't think that you can blame what's happened here on the business media. CNBC is a spectacular organization that has done a tremendous job covering the markets and the business world for 20 years and has probably distinguished itself more in the past two years than at any point....

Everybody wants to find a scapegoat now. Everybody wants to point a finger. I'm upset that my 401(k) isn't what it was. You're upset that your 401(k) isn't what it was. We all want to blame somebody and that's human nature. But to suggest that the business media or CNBC was responsible for what's going on right now is absurd.

-Zucker said neither the recent criticisms of CNBC nor the depressing nature of financial news at the moment has had any ill effect on viewership. "We're now into the seventh month of the post-Lehman world and the ratings continue to rise and I think that's because this is not a down market," he said. "This is a change in the structure of investing and Wall Street. This is not just a momentary blip, so I think people are far more concerned and far more interested in the intersection of business and Wall Street."

And as for those early signs that Stewart's skewering of Cramer had taken some air out of the CNBC bubble, Zucker said it's not so. "Just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn't make it so. And the fact is the audiences have been there in very strong numbers in the past seven days, so there doesn't appear to be any effect there."

-Zucker on MSNBC's recent ratings growth: "We couldn't get arrested with MSNBC for the first 13 years, but here in the 14th year it's just a tremendous success."

He confirmed a recent report that the channel is planning to develop a new show for the 10 p.m. hour, which currently offers a rebroadcast of Countdown. "We feel that if we can add one more program to that lineup, which we're actively looking for, it would really be another game changer for us," he said.

Pollock also asked Zucker about MSNBC's off-again, on-again designation of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as "anchors" despite their aggressively opinionated styles. Perhaps he was just being imprecise, but Zucker's seemed to suggest that NBC News is now okay with calling them anchors: "Keith and Chris and Rachel are the faces of MSNBC, particularly in prime time, and they will continue to anchor and do their programs."

-Zucker adopted a defensive posture when asked whether creating a 10 p.m. show for Jay Leno -- a move he has said is aimed at cost savings, not building ratings -- constitutes an acceptance of defeat.

"This is not a defeatist attitude at all," he said. "This is, I would look at it as a proactive, exciting attempt to change the model."

That said, he allowed, "NBC has had a difficult last three or four years. Sometimes you see the world more clearly when you're flat on your back. It makes you step up and acknowledge what's going on."

He said NBC has considered creating a Tonight Show-like program in prime time three or four times over the past couple decades. "I have the memos."

"We need to be honest about the change that's going on in broadcasting. We can cross our fingers and wish that this was 1987 but it's not. Technology has changed everything. Digital video recorders have changed the way people watch prime time television. The internet has changed the way people consume video and advertising is not what it was."