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GE chief Jeff Immelt was asked by Charlie Rose in an interview on his PBS broadcast this evening why the company sold a majority stake in NBCUniversal to Comcast. “We’re an operating company, we’re not a holding company. When I go into an oil and gas review I have 1,000 ideas. When I see our health care business I have 1,500 good ideas. At the end of NBC I’d say, ‘Make better shows and buy more cable’…I didn’t have 52 good ideas. I had two.” Still he says he doesn’t regret the period when he ran the entertainment giant. He noted that during the GE years NBCU launched the Harry Potter theme park attraction, aired the Olympics and the NFL, introduced The Voice, and beefed up its cable network holdings.
GE’s Immelt On Selling NBCU: “I Didn’t Have 52 Good Ideas. I had 2.”
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Paging David Letterman’s writers….
So the alternate NBC universe created by Tina Fey and her writers for ’30 Rock’ is, more or less, how NBC is actually run? BOOM!
That’s right we are very happy with Kabletown they are spectacular.
Whatever Jack. We know you miss being head of Light Entertainment and Microwave Ovens.
Hve fun not being invited to the Bilderberg Group meeting this year.
Must have been “The Hangover Effect” from the DISASTROUS tenure of Jeff Zucker-bot running NBC Entertainment’s division and then as CEO of NBC Universal that really “got to” Immelt and firmly convinced GE to sell a majority stake to Comcast (which smartly jettisoned Zucker-bot to deep space ASAP!).
I prefer to call that dark era at NBC Universal as the “Anti-Tartikoff/Christ” period…or “Life After J.Z.”
I’m wondering if Conan O’Brien would get a few yucks too out after bringing up Immelt’s comments in his monologue??!! This has to be as good as CNN as hiring Zucker-bot to run the news networks! ;-D
That is two more good ideas than we’ve had so far!
At last the CEO of General Electric reveals he is simply another unimaginative dummy.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Forget about being one of the world’s largest, most successful infrastructure suppliers, if you can’t come up with three new successful sitcoms per season you’re an “unimaginative dummy”.
NBC never really should have been a part of GE in the first place and was a leftover from their takeover of RCA in the 1980′s, which they did to get their industrial assets.
Jack Welch wanted to get rid of NBC for years but with must see TV in the 90′s he kind of lost that motivation. He retired as much of the lustre was shrinking and Immelt got stuck with a post-Friends NBC.
Yeah during his tenure NBC did kind of suck but GE does many heavy industrial things well. If he’s a dummy, why don’t you phone Chuck Lorre next time the power goes out and use his advanced knowledge of electrical generators to get it back on?
The only idea Immelt really ever had was to sell NBCU to Comcast at a fire sale price. The boys in Philly are still laughing about that one…
“I got 99 problems and a TV network ain’t 1″
Introduced The Voice?
What Immelt and Zucker and the GE clowns don’t get is that it’s not just that an idea was around.
It’s how it was launched. NBC would have spent no $ promoting it, no $ getting the judges it has… done everything as cheaply as possible… and killed it. Skimp on R&D, pay the price down the road.
Comcast got behind it… promotions were everywhere… spent huge bucks getting the best judges with Aguilera being key at the time… and made it into a hit.
Not a cheap show, but one show like this has tons of benefits that cover the other failures.
GE would have ensured it would be a failure. Immelt’s wrong: He had only ONE good idea…. sell NBC to someone else.
I’d love to see how Rupert, Sumner, Jeff, Bob and Les would respond to the 2 Idea approach to their jobs.
I must admit that fitting 1940′s power plant accounting into a 21st century media company was good for more than a few yucks.
Comcast is now the 800 Gorilla – they control the content, the distribution, the cable and the switch. Reminds me when Universal was controlled by MCA, they owned Revue TV productions, the syndication arm, the agnecy and the talent. LEW and company were way ahead of the game. 1962 the gov’t broke it all up…. he must be having a good laugh.
GE had no business getting into the entertainment industry in the first place. They tried to sell entertainment at NBC and Universal like they sell light bulbs and appliances. It doesn’t work that way and they learned the hard way. Hopefully Comcast will let the people that know the industry do their job. Good riddance GE!