Jeff Zucker finally leaving NBC!

[bellcurve]

No thanks.

The Chris Matthews Show is syndicated and Chris Matthews, IIRC, still has Hardball on MSNBC. And I happen to enjoy his panel show.

[Toups]

BC, I understand you dislike the show but no network is going to cancel their #1 show. When you try to rebuild a network, you don't go cancelling your #1 show.

[bellcurve]

So rebuilding the lineup around a show where your lead actor is leaving the show is the answer?

They need to get these ridiculous people out of development and start mid-season if NBC has any chance in hell of rebounding.

ETA: Furthermore Toups, I didn't really get a reaction from you on my assessment of most single-camera comedies. Wouldn't you agree that all the uncomfortable pausing and stupid human tricks are devices that are used to FORCE the audience to laugh, much like those who feel the laugh track is used to make people laugh at jokes that are or are not funny?

[Toups]

Well, canceling a #1 show is not the answer! LOL

I don't think it forces the audience to laugh - it's either funny to you or not. The thing about single cam is that you laugh on your own - what's funny to someone may not be funny to someone else. You don't get that with laugh tracks because if you think something is not funny, you still hear laughter.

[bellcurve]

But hearing a laugh track doesn't make it funny either. Just ask those in charge of The Single Guy, Caroline in the City, Suddenly Susan, Veronica's Closet(post-Season I), etc. Most multi-cams are taped before a live studio audience. It's not like every single scene has added laugh-track. And if it does, so what?!

I think there's so much arrogance where single cam fans are concerned. I definitely think laughing induced by forced staring matches with homoerotic overtones are every much a "conditioned response" as the laugh track.

[DaytimeFan]

5. Keeping DAYS would be a wise move since it's doing semi-well and no affiliate is going to accept anything NBC mandated in the daypart aside from DAYS. A new soap, though I'd like it, is not in the cards.

11. ABC has The View, CBS has The Talk, NBC could have The Opinion. It's probably an idea that would make money.

13. I feel exactly the opposite. A Listers are what's wrong with a lot of what NBC has been pushing for years. The 90s heyday that NBC enjoyed was due to total unknowns (Friends, Will & Grace, the cast of Frasier aside from Kelsey Grammar)...hire new talent, innovative people.

16. Bravo has just posted the best ratings it's ever had. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Bravo is run perfectly by Andy Cohen. There is a solid vision for that network and should be left totally alone.

27. Within the next 6 months or so the licensing deal ValueVision has with NBC runs out and it's been confirmed that ShopNBC will transform into something else. So far as electronic retailers go ShopNBC is a very distant 3rd, a very poor performer in contrast to HSN and QVC. It needs major fixing.

[wingwalker]

Bellcurve, you and I are SO on the same page! +1 to all your latest posts in this thread.

Rebuilding your comedy block around a show, when it's main star is leaving? That has NBC failure writen ALL over it!

As for laugh tracks, they don't force you to laugh, if something's unfunny, putting a laugh track over it doesn't make it funnier, just makes you cringe. I see nothing wrong with laugh tracks, most of them now a days are the studio audience laughing, at least that's the case with the Chuck Lorre sitcoms, he doesn't use fake ones. If the show is funny enough, you don't even notice them.

[JackPeyton]

I ahte laugh tracks, well the mad eup studio ones, i love shows taped in front of an audience.

[Khan]

See, it's that kind of thinking that got Zucker's ass fired. I'm just saying.

[bellcurve]

WIN.

[Sylph]

However, it was too late when he finally got the sack.

[bellcurve]

Never too late to try.

[Sylph]

[Sylph]

[Sylph]

"Male Parenthood" is coming to NBC:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/nbc-developing-nascar-family-drama/