Steve Burke, Comcast Corp.’s chief operating officer, will take the place of Jeff Zucker as chief executive of NBC Universal, announced Comcast and General Electric Co. on Sunday. Mr. Burke will begin his position as CEO once Comcast has officially acquired NBC Universal from General Electric. Television networks have been concerned with large shifts in audience viewing habits, so many changes in leadership are being made to facilitate new innovations within the company.
These shifts come at the beginning of a lackluster TV season, as more and more network TV executives are realizing that viewers are spending more time online and less time in their living room, leading to great industry-wide uncertainty about how subscription TV companies will earn a profit in this quickly changing market. The TV audience is becoming increasingly more fragmented, leading to an overall decline in broadcast audience during the first week of the new season compared to last year with the majority of viewers tuning in for established hits, such as Glee.
Mr. Burke has been deeply involved in Comcast’s ongoing efforts to reinvent its cable service to compete with the Internet. After Burke joined Comcast in 1998, he helped Comcast become the largest cable company, residential Internet service provider and third largest phone company in America. Also, he was able to launch the extremely popular video on-demand services, which directly competes with Internet viewing for convenience and variety. This shift represents how a change in consumer demand can directly influence who the executive leaders of a leading-industry company are.
Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704082104575516080170848138.html
http://www.portada-online.com/article.aspx?aid=6827
It is true that todays market and the web specifically has expanded so much that now there are more alternatives to subscription tv services. The technolgy of the alternative forms of subscription tv such as Apple Tv or online video on demand services has not jet been developed to the point that it can completely replace cable or satellite tv, and it certainly can't still compete with it in prices. I believe that this new CEO should not be that much concerned about the competition but for keeping up with Burke and what he has achieved.
ReplyDeleteClaudio Lacayo
Did you read much about Zucker's spotty achievements at NBC? He has an interesting leadership style, to say the least (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69015G20101001). Remember the whole Conan debacle?
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