Putting NBC on trial

New York, 2019 – The compelling civil suit, Barker v. NBC Universal/Grand Cane took another exciting turn today.

Defense attorneys questioned former members of the massive media conglomerate in front of the jury about their part in the dismantling of the once-great NBC television network that fell to pieces in the early part of the 21st century.

Former NBCU Co-Chairman of Entertainment Ben Silverman and NBCU CEO Jeffrey Zucker took the stand and seemed to struggle with identifying a clear rationale for many of the decisions the media power made from 2006 to 2013.

Though Silverman and Zucker were questioned about poor programming decisions and failed marketing tie-ins, neither seemed very upset with the results of their action – NBC losing a number of local affiliates and eventually being sold to Grand Cane, a cane manufacturer, in a move that echoed the parodies of the network on 30 Rock, NBC’s last great show.

When asked about his focus on creating new (and ultimately unappealing) advertising models, Silverman noted that although his inexperience could have gotten the better of him, he was still proud of a number of the initiatives he pushed through.

“Without my revenue-centric thought process, audiences would not have seen the ‘Knight Rider’ reboot in 2008 or be accustomed to at least one product placement for every two minutes of content,” Silverman said. “For me, those things will always be remembered. People won’t remember what show was canceled or who got what ratings figure – they’ll remember the incessant Ford mentions in ‘Knight Rider’ or Chili’s mentions in ‘The Office.’”

Zucker, who was eventually forced out of his post at NBCU when it was purchased by telecom giant Comcast (who quickly sold it to Grand Cane when it realized NBCU was being run primarily by highly-advanced apes and one giant artificial intelligence computer), took on more responsibility than his cohort Silverman.

“Signing Conan up for ‘The Tonight Show’ without asking Leno if he really wanted to step down and then eventually having to give up 10 p.m. every weeknight because he actually did not want to leave wasn’t the smartest thing we did during my time at NBC,” Zucker said. “But, it wasn’t the worst either; remember when we canceled the one gritty cop show ‘Southland’ before even airing a second season episode, and therefore more or less flushed at least $10 million down the toilet in one instance?”

The plaintiff Barker, who is acting as his own counsel in the proceedings, also took the stand and delivered yet another lacerating diatribe against the former media power.

“NBC used to stand for something in this country, but now other world powers laugh at us because this is the network we let air the Olympics,” he said. “It might have started with ‘The Jay Leno Show’ in 2009, but it only got worse from there. Six hours of ‘The Biggest Loser’ per week, eight hours of ‘The Today Show’ daily and 11 awful volumes of ‘Heroes’ – this did not have to happen. If only someone would have stopped all this years ago.”