The Unsinkable Jeff Zucker

Back in 2004, an Esquire writer named Braden Matthews wondered, Can My Dog Run NBC Better than Jeff Zucker?

The dog, named Iggy, didn't do too well: He turned up his wet nose at The Office (which went on to win a number of awards) but slobbered all over Beverly Hills S.U.V., featuring Henry Winkler. (You'd be forgiven for never having heard of it.)

Five years later, Zucker, president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal, hasn't done much better than Iggy. NBC is in fourth place, Jay Leno's 10 p.m. show has hit record lows, and the network's parent company, General Electric, is negotiating a deal to offload more than half of NBC Universal to cable provider Comcast.

Then why is Zucker probably smiling right now? Possibly because of Reuters' Jui Chakravorty's report that Zucker will be the head of the new combined NBC Universal-Comcast venture, an amazing vote of confidence for an executive who has come under intense criticism over the years. This month, when the Atlantic named Zucker one of their 27 Brave Thinkers (along with Steve Jobs, John Lasseter, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and Barack Obama), Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke called the selection Your Jeff Zucker Laugh for the Day. In March, the usually affable Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein started a column, "If there were ever any doubt that today's wealthy media conglomerate czars are out of touch with reality, all you have to do is listen to Jeff Zucker at this morning's BusinessWeek media summit."

Out of touch or not, it looks like Zucker is at NBC to stay.

Reuters' Chakravorty reports that when the Comcast deal goes through, "Under the terms being discussed, Zucker will lead the new entity, with no clauses for him to leave after a specific period, the sources said on Tuesday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been made public. The sources said Zucker would be chief executive, but no decisions had been made on what role [former Fox head Peter] Chernin might play, if any. Discussions about what the new board would look like are ongoing, the sources said."

With Zucker top dog, it looks like Iggy, the network programming canine, won't be barking orders from the corner office at NBC Universal anytime soon.

But what else should we have expected from an executive whose rise has not been slowed by any sort failure? Not even Ben Silverman's reign of error at the network could stop Zucker's rise—and, really, it seemed at times that that's what Silverman was trying to do.

As New York magazine's Mark Harris writes this week, "Zucker’s upward trajectory at NBC since 1992, when he became the producer of the moneymaking flagship Today show at the tender age of 26, has been fueled by his ability to swat away criticism by convincing those above and below him that he knows exactly what he’s doing."

Is it even necessary to add, "Even when he clearly doesn't?"