That's the headline atop Verne Gay's piece in Newsday, which takes a hard look at NBC's future.
Gay begins by calling into question the idea that there is any such thing as "NBC 2.0." He writes: "Everyone - that is to say, the press and analysts - bought this with all the gap-toothed gullibility of a first-time tourist at Times Square.
Then Gay delivers his punch: "Welcome to Times Square, suckers. It was all a shell game, designed to divert attention away from the real issues at hand, which are a troubled prime-time schedule and a muddled top management succession plan. Throw away the press release. NBC is still 1.0."
In particular, Gay takes note of the decision to close down the MSNBC studio in far-away New Jersey--remember when NBC chief Bob Wright heralded MSNBC as the key to the digital future? Remember when MSNBC was, in effect, NBC 2.0? Adds Gay: "This is effectively the correction of a mistake made 10 years ago when NBC built a cavernous new studio-office facility in Secaucus that (to this day) sits largely empty. NBC could have built an MSNBC studio in Manhattan 10 years ago, but - for reasons of tax avoidance and labor issues - trekked across the river instead. Magnificent studio aside, viewers still didn't watch MSNBC. It was a white elephant then, and a white elephant it remains."
