The New York Times, in its cover story, has a hell of a good time painting Jeff Zucker into a corner. But even if Zucker is wearing the black hat in all this, the blame for NBC’s predicament goes back to the GE management, and a fundamental lack of understanding of the evolution of the media business. For NBC, a little thing called cable may have played a part.

Remember 2004? Could it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line? Yes, yes and yes. Back then, it was very simple — Conan O’Brien was taking over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno in 2009. Changing of the guard. Passing of the torch. Handing down a treasure from generation to generation. Ah yes. It made all sorts of sense — then.

The early days of this week seem like a Disney movie compared with the ugliness that’s broken out in the late-night comedy wars. Before, they were topical jokes blaming one common corporate villain; now, it’s everyone attacking everyone — and Jay Leno is getting in on the action.

Last night’s Tonight Show contained arguably the sharpest jabs by Conan O’Brien at his employer – and Jay Leno.

How long can this last? If reports are true, it may be all over by next week. But what are the implications for O’Brien and NBC?

Throughout the recent sturm and drang surrounding the NBC late night drama, the one consistent takeaway is that this is all the fault of NBC Chief Jeff Zucker. And while that may or may not be true, the idea of moving Jay Leno to the 10pm time slot wasn’t always seen as the disastrous move that is now. In fact, many television critics hailed Zucker for “the coup” of keeping Leno when this move was announced. Let’s take a look at what critics said at the time, and compare it to their thoughts now. Fun! Right?

“All comedians who care about comedy love and respect Conan,” says Matt Besser, co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade, a staple of the comedy community. But why?

As he has all week, David Letterman took obvious delight in ripping NBC and its late night situation on his CBS Late Show.

But last night he went specific – taking aim at NBCU President Jeff Zucker and other “idiot” NBC executives.

NBC’s decision to put Jay Leno back in the 11:30 slot has revealed the worst side of media critics: taking for granted any successful or smart decision, while relishing the chance to boo every mistake. In any other world this sort of experimentation and admission of failure would be lauded. Instead the entertainment media has gleefully bared its gnashing teeth with “Zucked this up!” headlines. But if these guys are suddenly free to admit they’ve made bad decisions, which TV personalities should be most concerned?

There is no love lost between NBC and Fox News, best evidenced by the following clip of Bill O’Reilly and guest Bernie Goldberg taking great joy in the recent late night programming decisions at NBC involving Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. Not only do they take repeated shots at NBC Chief Jeff Zucker, but they make the worst insult of all – they compare him to, gasp, Barack Obama!

As has been rumored for awhile, Comcast and GE announced this morning they were forming a joint venture.

Comcast would own 51%, GE would own 49%, Comcast would manage and the venture consists of NBCU businesses, Comcasts’s cable networks and certain digital properties, among other things.

Reuters is reporting that according to sources Comcast Corp and General Electric Co have agreed to make current NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker the head of their new proposed joint venture, though the “structure of a new board is still being negotiated” and Peter Chernin‘s role is still up in the air.

Yesterday, the news that former News Corp. heavyweight Peter Chernin had been advising Comcast in its bid for NBC Universal sent shockwaves throughout the media world. Before the speculation as to what this means gets out of hand, it’s worth bringing up one key data point: both of Chernin’s top deputies, Katherine Pope and Dylan Clark, are former NBC/Uni execs.

Howard Kurtz reports in today’s Washington Post how White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel directly called the corporate CEOs of parent companies of TV networks to air Obama’s prime time press conference. Kurtz reveals the inner-workings of the relationship between White House and networks, and raises a serious question: who’s making the editorial decisions at the networks?

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