Zucker Considering Blogs for Brian Williams and Katie Couric

Posted on April 20, 2005

Jeff Zucker, the President of NBC Universal Television Group is considering creating blogs for NBC's top television personalities. Reuters reports on Zucker's comment made at a recent conference:

"Over the next two years, network news is going to go through a lot more changes," Zucker said at a Yahoo conference on high-speed Internet use. "This is one of the biggest issues facing traditional network news divisions."
"I don't know why Brian Williams isn't blogging right now," Zucker said of the anchor of NBC's top-rated evening news program who took the helm after veteran journalist Tom Brokaw stepped down in December. "We should be looking for a more interactive component ... and be experimenting more."
Zucker said he was considering a blog for Williams and could envision a similar blog for Katie Couric, the co-host of NBC's Today show. He noted that the morning program hadn't changed its format much in more than a decade.

More blogs from entertainment and television news hosts are highly likely to emerge over the next six to twelve months. These blogs will need to be more than just a recap of tv broadcasts to be successful. Some of them will probably be very popular which will drain some traffic away from the layman blogs. The big media blogs will have the advantage of a full staff including producers and editors. They also have television shows with massive audiences that they can use to promote their blogs.