Kevin Magee is probably the most powerful Cable Game executive that even most Cable Gamers have never heard of. He's not well known, but he knows how to throw a punch.
For the past few years, Magee has been working for Fox--first he was helping on the news channel, then he was in charge of Fox radio, and now, he's the executive vice president of Fox Business News. And before all that, he worked at CNBC and ABC News. Which is to say, Magee's been involved in some pretty heavy TV work, while keeping a low profile.
And Magee used all of his throw-weight to clobber Jeff Zucker, the head of NBC Universal. Now Zucker, of course, is the opposite of a low profile guy; he is always available for interviews, always having his picture taken at some sort of celebrity event. But of course, such publicity-hounding and hobnobbing doesn't make you a good TV executive, as GE has discovered.
And even Zucker is figuring it out. When the NBCU man tried to dismiss Fox, Magee got right back at him. And Broadcasing & Cable's Marisa Guthrie was there to catch the fur flying. Guthrie asked, "What's your reaction to NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker's recent comments that Fox Business is not for viewers who actually want information about investing?"
And Magee answered:
Jeff really hasn't had any success since the Today show, so I'm not sure he's the best barometer for what's good for TV. Our people look like they're very happy to be on TV. And over at CNBC they look miserable. If I were working under Jeff, who sort of failed upward, I'd be miserable, too.
The fact is he's liable to get more shrill as we go along because he's got all the resources of NBC behind this. When they went into NBC 2.0 [cost-saving restructuring], the only exemption was CNBC because they knew we were coming. Anything that they wanted, any project they wanted to do, got funded. And if we get any kind of foothold or make any inroads after all of that, I think it's going to reflect very badly on Jeff.
Pow! In the world of media smackdowns, it doesn't get much smackier than what Magee did to Zucker.
