Bob Wright's retirement plans

NBC Universal's chairman and CEO allows NYT reporters Bill Carter and Richard Siklos to follow him around during a recent visit to L.A. and of course he was asked about when he was planning to step down. Wright didn't want to talk about it, other than to say that the time will come but that it isn't now. Nor does it seem imminent. "Listen, I stay here because I enjoy it," he told the paper. "And I also feel a certain sense of obligation." Wright's boss, GE Chairman Jeff Immelt, wouldn't provide any time frame either. There's some drama over Wright's plans because his heir apparent is NBC head Jeff Zucker, who has been a polarizing figure at the network.

His claim to fame was turning the "Today" show into a profit center, but he has always been a New York guy. Even as head of the entertainment side Zucker never had much use for the creative types out here (and they weren't too crazy about him). And with NBC going through a terrible couple of years in prime time, there's all kind of speculation that Zucker might be aced out of Wright's job. He gets only mixed reviews among stock analysts (remember he doesn't have a background in business), and there's been scuttlebutt about him and Wright not being the best of buds (a point not addressed in the NYT piece). But Immelt seems to like Zucker, and of course that's what matters. From the NYT:

Where Mr. Zucker is concerned, Mr. Immelt says, essentially, that even though he does look outside the company for senior candidates, the chief executive’s job is Mr. Zucker’s to lose. “I am today and have been a Jeff Zucker fan,” he said. “I don’t want to put any sharper edge on that other than to say that Jeff is a talented executive.” Implicit in Mr. Immelt’s statement is another — that, for the foreseeable future, G.E. plans to hang on to NBC Universal. “We still view it as an industry that is capable of solid growth,” he said. Some analysts...say that the financial prospects of NBC are improving and that G.E. would not sell it before it cashes in on the Olympics and coverage of the presidential election in 2008.