Mark Lazarus. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
In the New Testament of the Bible, Lazarus is a man who is resurrected by Jesus four days after his death. Inside 30 Rock, a very different Lazarus is hoping to perform a similar miracle: breathing new life into NBCUniversal's assortment of unwanted and dying cable assets.
Mark Lazarus on Wednesday was officially named as the boss of SpinCo, the soon-to-be publicly traded company comprised of the bulk of NBCU's cable channels, including MSNBC, CNBC, E!, Oxygen, SyFy, the Golf Channel, and more. Breaking off networks like Syfy from NBCU shouldn’t be especially difficult or consequential. But extracting the much more high-profile cable news assets from Cesar Conde's NBC News palace will present some knotty challenges.
Which is perhaps why Lazarus commenced the busy first day in his new position meeting with staffers at MSNBC, which now reports to him, not Conde. Not only did Lazarus take questions from the likes of Rachel Maddow during the progressive news network's daily editorial meeting, but I’m told he also spent time in the "Morning Joe" control room and walked the halls of the channel, familiarizing himself with staffers, talent, and executives.
"It’s been a good day, spending a lot of time with [the[ MSNBC team," Lazarus told me Wednesday afternoon…
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The Information Wars
"Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. (Screen grab via SnapStream)
Joe and the (Lost) Juice: The "Morning Joe" audience is making it clear it is not happy with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski having groveled before Donald Trump. The day after the couple revealed they had traveled to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the show's had its third lowest-rated telecast of the year. In total audience, the Tuesday program averaged just…
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