Zucker: "Nobody is entitled to any job" (WSJ)

By Nancy Tartaglione

The Wall Street Journal is running a sit down with Jeff Zucker in which the NBC Universal chief shares his strategy for the coming years, talks about Conan and Jay and voices his hope that Comcast has thick skin when it comes to "30 Rock."

"There's never been a better time for the creation of great content. [But] it's much more fragmented and lives in many different places than ever before. We have to figure out how we are going to pay for this quality content. We used to be able to run our programs on the broadcast network [multiple times]. And that is how we would pay for it...I do not think that it is a foregone conclusion that content should be free on the Internet." Zucker tells the Journal.

On the future of broadcast, Zucker says, "We have made the commitment to be in broadcasting. And if we're going to be in it, we're going to be in it to win it. That's an expensive proposition, and that's why we've made a renewed commitment and a tremendous investment in NBC Entertainment this fall, for instance."

On why NBC hasn't had a big hit in years, he says, "Look, we've had such success around all the other parts of the company, whether it's in cable, or news or sports. That success has eluded us recently in prime time. I think we didn't have the right management team in place, and we hadn't allocated enough resources to the team. And I think we've corrected both of those issues."

On the Conan O'Brien/Jay Leno debacle: "I regret that it became a soap opera, and that it played out as publicly as it did."

And, on the speculation that his job may not be safe once Comcast takes over, Zucker offers: "Nobody is entitled to any job. Having said that, there's probably never been a better time to be in this role at NBC Universal. Things are going incredibly well, and I'm excited to continue doing that, and looking forward to continuing to do that for quite some time."

Finally, on the cultural differences between Comcast and NBC Universal, Zucker quips: "You know, I don't know yet how we differ, but I just hope that Comcast is as lenient with '30 Rock' making fun of them as we have been with them making fun of us."