Andy Lack is out as head of NBC. He’s been there since 2015 and was widely thought to have protected Matt Lauer during his downfall.
Lack was seen as lacking in many areas, not the least of which was directing the company out of the MeToo scandals. He will be gone at the end of the month if not sooner.
The new chairman of NBC is Cesar Conde, 46. the head Telemundo. He will be in charge of NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC. NBC News president Noah Oppenheim and MSNBC president Phil Griffin will both report to Conde. Mark Lazarus will be in charge of the company’s entertainment properties, as well as its new streaming service Peacock.
The end of Andy Lack is not only connected to Matt Lauer, but also to the whole Ronan Farrow episode regarding Harvey Weinstein. Farrow — as he’s told us over and over– was working on his investigation of Weinstein, but Lack pulled the plug after a war among lawyers. Farrow took his piece to The New Yorker, and the rest is history. Standing up for the old guard did Lack in. It was a failure to see the writing was on the wall for the old regimes.
Conde represents the new generation. He came to Telemundo in 2013 after a 10-year run at Univision, where he turned that company into an international player. He’s young, successful, and not white, which is going to be very important if NBC is going to evolve into a 21st century company. Conde will report to Jeff Shell, the head of NBC Universal, just recovering from corona virus and coming back strong with today’s announcements.
