The National Broadcasting Company

During the 1980s, NBC was a leader in the ratings, buoyed by dramatic shows such as St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues, and by comedies such as The Cosby Show and Family Ties. It was at this time (1986) that General Electric (GE) purchased NBC. However, the success that NBC had in the 1980s dwindled in the early 1990s when the above shows went off the air and when the company suffered the loss of Johnny Carson and David Letterman in the late-night area. The network posted its first loss in 1991, and GE nearly sold a controlling interest in the company in 1992 to Paramount. In addition to financial loss, the network also suffered a loss of reputation when its Dateline show was revealed to have staged a highly dramatic crash involving a General Motors pickup truck.

Rumors also circulated during this time that the chief executive officer of GE, Jack Welch, was trying to sell the beleaguered network, which caused additional stress among the staff. The news and sports divisions were two areas that were consistently singled out for criticism in the press and among industry analysts, and potentially strong revenue was lost when the National Football League opted to sign with the rival Fox network for broadcasting rights.

Television broadcasting is a highly competitive market that caters to

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evidenced by several events which occurred by early 1994. At that time, NBC had rebounded from being in third place in the ratings competition to vying for first place with ABC. Shows such as Seinfeld, ER, and Frasier had successfully built an audience for themselves that rivalled NBC's 1980s successes. The network's magazine shows, which are inexpensive to produce and thus highly profitable, were successful, and the news division was more profitable than at any other time in its history (exact figures for NBC are difficult to come by because the network is a wholly owned subsidiary of GE, which does not officially release financial information on its divisions). Additionally, the network's sports division had procured NFC, NBA and major league baseball games, the grand slam of golf, and the 1996 Summer Olympics, each of which is expected to bring in large numbers of viewers. NBC also began to take on its cable competition directly through its CNBC network and its America's Talking network (which premiered in 1994). Domestic distribution was further assured with the network successfully negotiating with local stations to ensure that NBC reaches 75 percent of American households for at least the next seven to ten years, whil
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2578
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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