4:00 p.m. | Updated Steve Capus, the president of NBC News for almost eight years, said Friday that he was leaving the network news division in the coming weeks.
“It has been a privilege to have spent two decades here, but it is now time to head in a new direction,” Mr. Capus wrote in an internal memo on Friday afternoon. “I have informed Pat Fili-Krushel that I will be leaving NBC News in the coming weeks.”
Mr. Capus’s exit has been rumored at the network ever since Comcast put Ms. Fili-Krushel in charge of all of NBC’s news assets six months ago.
Mr. Capus is the longest-serving president of any of the three network news divisions, having guided NBC through a revolutionary time in news-gathering and distribution. He maintained the news division’s profitability, managed tensions between NBC News and its increasingly liberal cable channel MSNBC, and fostered new business ventures like an in-house production company and an annual education summit. Last year he unwound an old deal with Microsoft to give the news division complete control over its Web site, now named NBCNews.com, for the first time.
But a restructuring six months ago foreshadowed Friday’s announcement. Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBCUniversal, consolidated all of NBC’s news units — NBC News, MSNBC and the business news channel CNBC — under a new umbrella, the NBCUniversal News Group, and he named one of his most trusted lieutenants, Ms. Fili-Krushel, to run it. Mr. Capus, who previously reported directly to Mr. Burke, now reported to Ms. Fili-Krushel.
Mr. Capus made no secret of his unhappiness with the restructuring. His contract had a clause that allowed him to leave in the event that he no longer reported to Mr. Burke, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement at NBC. He decided to exercise that right after months of contemplation, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized by the network to speak publicly.
Mr. Capus told Ms. Fili-Krushel of his intent to leave last Friday. He probably would have left sooner, but a series of major news stories kept him busy late last year — including Hurricane Sandy, the presidential election and the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Mr. Capus also oversaw the network’s response to the kidnapping of Richard Engel and an NBC News crew in Syria last month.
Ms. Fili-Krushel said in an e-mail to staff members that she will appoint a new NBC News president at some point. But for now, most of the senior executives who worked for Mr. Capus will report directly to her.
Notably, the executive recently put in charge of the “Today” show and “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” Alex Wallace, will now also have executive oversight of “NBC Nightly News.”
Ms. Fili-Krushel wrote in her e-mail that “NBC News is America’s leading source of television news and Steve has been a big part of that success.”
NBC News is indeed the producer of the most popular evening newscast in the country. But its single biggest source of profits, the morning show “Today,” fell to second place last year, behind ABC’s “Good Morning America,” for the first time since the 1990s. The decline caused widespread anxiety inside the news division and speculation that Mr. Capus would be relieved of his duties.
The executive producer of “Today,” Jim Bell, was replaced last fall. He is now the executive producer for NBC Olympics.
Inside NBC, both Mr. Capus and Mr. Bell received a share of the blame for the botched removal of Ann Curry from “Today” last June, which worsened the show’s already tenuous position in the ratings. Savannah Guthrie is now the co-host of “Today,” and Ms. Curry is a national and international correspondent for the network, but is rarely seen.
In his e-mail to staff members on Friday Mr. Capus called it an “extremely difficult decision to walk away,” noting that he started at NBC as a producer 20 years ago this month. He did not make any mention of what he would do next.
“Journalism is, indeed, a noble calling, and I have much I hope to accomplish in the next phase of my career,” he wrote in his email message.
The heads of the news divisions at ABC and CBS have each been in their respective jobs for about two years. They, like the heads of CNN and the Fox News Channel, are men, making Ms. Fili-Krushel the highest-ranking woman in the television news industry.
Ms. Fili-Krushel, who previously served as an executive vice president for Mr. Burke, has kept a low public profile since being appointed the head of the NBCUniversal News Group last July. But she has been a forceful presence behind the scenes, moving from her office on the 51st floor of 30 Rockefeller Center to a new one on the third floor, where NBC News is based. She and Mr. Capus both interviewed candidates for Mr. Bell’s job last fall, and eventually settled on a two-tier structure, with Ms. Wallace overseeing the program and Don Nash producing it day-to-day.
“Today” continues to lose to ABC’s “Good Morning America” among total viewers, but lately it has won a few weeks in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers covet. “NBC Nightly News” has more successfully fended off ABC’s “World News,” despite an aggressive push by ABC.
Keeping the news division profitable in an age of diminishing network ratings may be Mr. Capus’s single greatest contribution. While NBC News has suffered from staff cuts like the rest of the company, it has maintained most of its journalistic muscle and has invested in NBCNews.com, Today.com and its other Web sites.
“I have tried to shield our journalists from the tough economic pressures hoping that would give each of you the running room to focus solely on a commitment to outstanding journalism,” Mr. Capus wrote in his email, adding that “NBC News has grown in all key metrics — from ratings and reputation to profitability.”
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/capus-head-of-nbc-news-is-departing/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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