Zucked up: NBC boss finds hope in Haiti

"Look! Over there! No! Not at late night! At Haiti!"

With his once-winning network crumbling around him, the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien embarrassment making the prospect of keeping his job at the top once the deal to dump NBC onto Comcast comes through a little less certain, and seeing his name suddenly morphed into a new word that means "bungled" ("zucked up"), Jeff Zucker can at least take comfort knowing he didn't screw up NBC News too badly by, let's say, trying to hold onto Katie Couric by giving her the Nightly News chair. This memo went out to the troops and their leaders this morning:

Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 1:01 AM
Subject: HAITI Coverage

A quick note of thanks to everyone at NBC News and MSNBC and MSNBC.com who has played a role in covering the earthquake in Haiti, both here at home and on the ground there.

Your coverage has been comprehensive, compassionate, powerful, sensitive and respectful, often under incredibly difficult circumstances.

Of course, nothing can do real justice to the tragedy that has unfolded in Haiti, the devastating loss of life and the unimaginable aftermath that now exists there.

But you have again reminded us why so many of us got into this business .. to help shine a light on events like this and, in doing so, bring some small measure of hope to those affected.

You have done it superbly, and made the entire company proud.

Thank you again.

JEFF

Run, Conan, Run

"NBC chief Jeff Gaspin said the network is pulling the plug on The Jay Leno Show beginning February 12, and he is in active negotiations to try and keep Leno and Conan O'Brien on NBC..."

Jenny Slate full-frontal nude photo! The girl who said the f-word on Saturday Night Live!

Jenny Slate made her debut on Saturday Night Live in the early hours of Sunday morning with her own sketch about a biker chick talk show in which she and her guests used the word "frickin'" (instead of "f*ckin'") over and over again. Amid the hilarity, she somehow wound up tossing in the real f-word and then made a funny face (puffing out her cheeks) to call attention to it. The "slip-up" was edited out for the West Coast feed, so we didn't get to hear it, though we did notice the edit because it was made mid-puff.

Former SNL cast member Charles Rocket is best known for saying the f-word on camera back in the Eighties. He later committed suicide. Jenny, who especially in biker drag was a fine visual alternative to chubby Casey Wilson, should fare a lot better. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if she'd been hired for that very reason. Facing competition from premium channels and the Internet and looser restrictions on cable, why not use the new kid to test out the reaction well after midnight on the 35th season debut?

NBC News picks up our exclusive report on Farrah's missing diaries

Hey, this is news: a mainstream network news operation has picked up an exclusive report from Tabloid Baby.com-- and given us attribution!

A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to NBC New York, the website for NBC's New York City news operation,and veteran newsman Michael Horowicz, who this afternoon posted a story on Farrah Fawcett's missing diaries:

"The publisher of Alana Stewart's book, entitled 'My Journey With Farrah,' is mum on reports that the book contains words from Farrah Fawcett's own diary, which has gone missing."

Most crucially, Horowicz adds:

"The website 'Tabloid Baby' quotes an 'insider' as saying 'The scuttlebutt is that this book ... contains Farrah's words from her diary'..."

With a link! That's rare. Top Internet news sites like Ray Richmond's Man Bites Hollywood and our new pal The Big Cheese at Hollywood's Rumor Rat always play it fair, as we all break stories and link to the sources-- but one of the mainstream organizations were challenging? Huzzahs for Horowicz!

What's most impressive is that Horowicz and crew followed up on our reportage and took the story to the next level:

"When contacted by WNBC-TV News, officials at Harper Collins, the book's publisher, had no comment."

The hacks in Las Vegas should take a cue from a real pro journo like Michael Horowicz.

Anchors away

Local TV news is seeing the end of its big-money anchor era. In New York, local legend sportscaster Len Berman is retiring after 25 years or so. We worked with Len at WNBC, and were there for his first sportscast at News 4 New York. The combination of Len and Marv Albert, the hardest working man in show business, was unbeatable even among the giants they faced in competition. We've been away from NYC for a while now, and it's odd to see a photo of Len looking, well, old. We recall Len as a real sweet guy, were there for his first "Spanning The World" clip segment (and always wanted to tell him that "Spanning the Globe" sounded better) and remember how, in the studio he'd always bare his upper row of teeth to get his smile on before he began his sportscast. Good guy.

And meanwhile in Los Angeles, long tall pinstriped Paul Moyer, a dedicated and totally Angeleno newscaster on KNBC (as in NYC, the "classiest" local news operation), has announced his retirement. Moyer is known worldwide for the recorded spat he had with a female co-anchor (above) which is said to have inspired Will Ferrell's Ron Burgundy. We see Moyers around town, or riding in the Fourth of July parade.

This, of course, is only the beginning. The economy, technology and information access have conspired to end this era of big hair and big salaries. Expect to see many more familiar local news giants-- real reporting journos who write their own copy like like Len and pompous TelePrompter reading talking heads alike-- fold up their tents and hand over the reins to the 20-somethings. Time marches on. And we're still figuring out Twitter.

*UPDATE: Our Man Elli in Israel, a veteran NYC sports journalist, adds:

"I never worked with Len, but would see him around the locker rooms and clubhouses, and in the press rooms of New York sports teams. He was a genuine good guy, who never took himself seriously but took his job seriously, and in that he was excellent-- knew his stuff, and presented it in a way that made non-sports fans listen-- and enjoy. He ranks up there with Bill Mazer among the N.Y. sports journalist Hall of Famers. And hey, whatever happened to Bill?"

Thanksgiving turkeys don't come much bigger or fatter than last night's Rosie Live special on NBC. What's Ben Silverman smoking? Oh, right...

Wow. Get the tapes of last night's Rosie Live special on NBC, pack them up and ship them to the Paley Center for Media or some other broadcasting Hall of Fame because it was so classically wrong it made The Chevy Chase Show look like Curb Your Enthusiasm. We were still getting used to the sight of dour Rosie stuffed into black female drag and dotted with red lipstick when she came out dressed up as an Irish beat cop for a vaudeville skit with a grown woman playing a little girl in stereotypical Pocahontas drag. While Rosie may be working out some recovered memories of being abused by a family member while watching the Abbott & Costello show, it's just lazy to try and pass off an ersatz Provincetown fundraiser as the revival of the network television variety show. Call this the worst network TV special of the new century. We're calling it that and we only watched it on fast-forward. Keep a copy to play over and over and over again...

(UPDATE: A mere 5 million viewers tuned in for the 8 p.m. premiere of “Rosie Live,” with the program earning a 1.2 preliminary adults 18-49 rating. The telecast matched ABC’s recently-canceled “Pushing Daisies” as the night's lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.)

Rachel Dratch is one hot chick

"Rachel Dratch is funny.
Rachel Dratch is a good actor.
Rachel Dratch is cute.
Rachel Dratch has a great rack..."

Back in August 2006, we caused a stir with our report that former Saturday Night Live player Rachel Dratch had been demoted from a starring role on her BFF Tina Fey's new NBC show 30 Rock for reasons that were obvious but not particularly pleasant:

“(Lorne) Michaels told Variety ‘that role has been scrapped and Dratch will play an assortment of different characters throughout the season.’

"…In Hollywood, that's called 'letting her down easy,' because a day later it's revealed that Jenna DeCarlo lives after all! Only little gnomy Rachels’s been replaced by Jane Krakowski-- a face and body more suitable to prime time….”

The piece, entitled Not Pretty Enough for Prime Time, caused a stir in its day, but in light of Rachel’s recent public complaint that she’s out of work and left behind by her sisters from SNL, we’re getting new response from that old controversial story, and we thought we’d share the one we got over the weekend from this guy:

Anonymous said...

Rachel Dratch is funny.
Rachel Dratch is a good actor.
Rachel Dratch is cute.
Rachel Dratch has a great rack.

Message to Hollywood: this is a woman I want to see more of. (Take that however you like.)

- Straight, employed, good-looking male in his 30s