Positive Vibe at NBC Affiliates Board Meeting

Network, affils looking ahead on retrans, Olympics

By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/21/2010 6:06:54 PM

Both NBC and its affiliates board spoke positively of their annual meeting in New York today (Jan. 21), saying both parties are happy to move ahead after the recent Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien drama and work together on issues such as retransmission consent.  

NBC affiliates board chairman Michael Fiorile said the board-and, presumably, most of the affiliate body-is looking forward to seeing Jay Leno back in his old Tonight Show role. "I think everybody's pretty happy about that," he said. "NBC went ahead and made the decision and made it quickly, and we're appreciative."

Fiorile also said the board is optimistic about a potential Comcast ownership. (For the record, the potential Comcast ownership was not discussed during the meeting.) Comcast has made a point of stating its commitment to local television as it endures the long wait for the massive deal to be OK'd in Washington. "From what we see and what we hear about their commitment to over the air, to localism, to a continued affiliate-network system," he said, "we're feeling pretty good."

How to maximize retrans earnings was also on the agenda, but both the network and board reps said those talks were in the early stages. "We're having a dialogue with a cross-section of affiliate groups large and small," said NBC TV Network and Media Works President John Eck. "We're trying to craft a template to have meaningful conversations with individual groups. It's been very constructive."

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams paid a visit to the meeting, and shared some of what he saw in Haiti in the last week.

With the Olympics around the corner and NBC putting the Leno-at-10 experiment in the rear-view mirror, both parties were optimistic about the future. Eck went out of his way to praise the affiliates. "It's been a great dialogue since the time I've been associated with the relationship in this way," he said. "It's a very, very positive and engaged relationship."