Jeff Zucker | featured news

Incoming CNN President Jeff Zucker said Thursday that he intends to make the network more "vibrant and exciting" while broadening the programming on television's original but struggling cable news outlet. The former NBC Universal chief's long-rumored selection as CNN president was announced Thursday. He'll start in January and report to Phil Kent, who runs all the Turner networks for parent company Time Warner.

Tribune Co. owners are again casting around for candidates to lead the troubled media outfit, which has been in Chapter 11 for more than three years. Former NBCUniversal boss Jeff Zucker is a leading candidate to run the debt-plagued newspaper and TV station company, sources said.

Comcast Chief Operating Officer Steve Burke will succeed Jeff Zucker as the new CEO of NBC Universal later this year, when Comcast takes control of the broadcaster.

Jeff Zucker said on Friday that he would leave NBC Universal once the deal with Comcast was completed.

Jeff Zucker, the maniacal mastermind behind the downfall of NBC and the instigator of the Late Night Wars that devastated the TV landscape earlier this year, is reportedly being ousted from his position at NBC.

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker leapt to the defense of CNBC this morning, describing Comedy Central host Jon Stewart's evisceration of the network and Mad Money host Jim Cramer as "incredibly unfair to CNBC and the business media."

"CNBC is a spectacular organization and in particular Jim Cramer," he said.