Survivor: Burbank: who, if anyone, will NBC vote out of a job if this fall season bombs like last year's?(Jeff Zucker and Kevin Reilly, National Broadcasting Company Inc. NBC Entertainment)

Broadcasting & Cable, August, 2005 by Higgins, John M.

With the start of the fall season looming, the chief topic of speculation in the TV community is not Martha Stewart's post-incarceration prospects or what's inside that tunnel they found on the last episode of Lost. No, the big mystery that has networks, producers and agents buzzing is: Will NBC's Jeff Zucker and Kevin Reilly keep their jobs? The two executives are the ones that have primary responsibility for reviving the network, whose plunge from first place to fourth in the Nielsen ratings over the past year will cost parent company GE hundreds of millions of dollars.

The pressure would be high anywhere, but it's perhaps worst at a company where the mantra is to be first or second in whatever business it's in. "I hear it every day," Reilly says...

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