As the fourth-rated broadcast TV network, NBC has made plenty of mistakes during the past few years, under now-ousted CEO Jeff Zucker. These failures actually arose from NBC’s longtime corporate culture and mission, which have been in place since the 1950s: an emphasis on specials and spectacular ideas as opposed to creating solid entertainment. It was NBC’s ambitions, inherited from the innovative TV programmer Sylvester “Pat” Weaver in the 1950s, that led to expensive, high-concept shows such as Kings, Heroes, The Event, and the like (note the high-flown titles of these series). Even last season’s Tonight Show debacle can be seen as part of this trend, an attempt at innovation and specialness on the cheap. This approach has failed at least as often as it has succeeded—NBC’s ratings were seldom spectacular under Weaver; CBS tended to rule the roost then, as today. In fact NBC’s greatest success in the post-Weaver years was the Brandon Tartikoff era, when the former ABC program exec wedded  the network’s typical ambition and thirst for innovation with a smart quest for personable actors and entertaining concepts. With Zucker now on the way out and Jeff Gaspin installed as board chairman, NBC appears to be trying

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