NBC PRIDE STILL GLOWING GE-OWNED NETWORK CELEBRATES 75TH ANNIVERSARY AT TOP OF ITS GAME.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

The Peacock Network has plenty of reason to display its feathers with pride on the occasion of its 75th birthday, to be celebrated in a three- hour prime-time special airing on NBC tonight.

Katie Couric and Matt Lauer are stronger than ever in the mornings and Jay Leno continues to rule in late night. And during the prime-time hours that come in between, NBC boasts a roster of top-rated, critically acclaimed comedies and dramas appealing to the 18-49 audience, the demographic that advertisers most covet.

Most importantly to shareholders, the network's revenues have doubled to $6 billion in the 16 years since General Electric Co. bought NBC's longtime parent company, RCA.

When GE came into the picture in 1986, it brought to network television a bottom-line orientation that had not been displayed before in the medium and has served the network well, said Nicholas Heymann, an analyst with Prudential Securities Inc. in New York.

``They are well-positioned long term and short term,'' Heymann said. ``Overall, they've got a lot of the right ideas.''

The network currently has 13 company-owned stations - including KNBC (Channel 4) in Burbank - and more than 220 affiliates in the United States. It has managed to weather a $400 million hit directly related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the U.S. as the network covered the aftermath for days without advertising.

``They own most of the categories, including the morning and evening news and do fairly well in prime time with the right target audience,'' Heymann said. ``(NBC Chairman) Bob Wright has a lot of ideas and can think right out of the box.''

It was during the 1990s that rumors swirled that the network was for sale. A deal came close to being struck with The Walt Disney Co. at one point and other suitors included CNN founder Ted Turner and Barry Diller, now chairman of the Universal Entertainment Group.

But sale rumors have been quashed since last fall, when NBC announced that it was buying Telemundo Communications Group Inc., the second-largest broadcaster in the U.S., for nearly $2 billion in cash and stock.

The deal, the network's largest acquisition ever, signaled to many that GE was firmly committed to its television unit as never before under new CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt, who said he saw the network as a wealth of opportunities rather than as an eroding asset.

Immelt replaced retired GE Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch and has indicated his willingness to green-light more such deals to spur revenue growth across all of the network's properties. While GE had $130 billion in total sales last year, NBC's revenues accounted for just 5 percent of that total.

Ratings for the network's prime-time schedule have been resurgent since last fall. In particular, the long-running sitcom ``Friends'' experienced something of a rebirth in its eighth season as it jumped back to the top of the ratings heap after Sept. 11. It had been drubbed the previous season by the CBS reality show ``Survivor.''

The network is paying each of ``Friends' '' six main cast members, including Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry, $1 million per episode to return for a ninth and likely final season this fall.

Also still going strong are two multiple Emmy-award winning sitcoms: ``Will & Grace'' which has boasted guest appearances from such stars as Matt Damon, Michael Douglas and Rosie O'Donnell in recent months, and the durable ``Frasier'' starring Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce. The latter comedy, a spin-off from NBC's long-running ``Cheers,'' is now in its 10th season with at least two more to go.

In the area of prime-time dramas, NBC's ``ER'' has remained one of the most popular programs in television throughout the entirety of its nine seasons, despite the departure of nearly all of its original cast members over the years. Also, ``The West Wing'' has brought the network strong ratings during its first two seasons as well as numerous Emmys.

NBC continues to rule morning television with its venerable ``Today'' show, as robust as ever in its 50th year. Now airing for three hours each weekday morning, the program is enjoying immense popularity during the tenure of current co-hosts Couric and Lauer.

``Today'' takes in about $250 million a year in profit, by far the biggest profit-producing program on the network. It is for this reason, as well as a renewed challenge in the past year from rival ``Good Morning America'' on ABC, that Couric was signed in December to a $60 million contract for 4 1/2 years, believed to be the largest financial deal ever signed in television news.

As for Lauer, he recently extended his deal at NBC for at least three more years for an estimated annual salary of $8 million. Lauer has co- hosted the program since 1997 with Couric, who joined the show in 1991.

Being one of the four major broadcast networks - along with CBS, ABC and Fox - no longer encompasses all of NBC's media assets and outlets. In the last decade, the company has branched out into cable and other television ventures.

CNBC, a cable mews channel that features such financial programming as ``Wake Up Call,'' ``Power Lunch'' and ``Closing Bell'' during the day, recently beefed up its prime-time offerings with the addition of ``Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street'' to air opposite Rukeyser's former ``Wall Street Week'' show on public television.

But it is MSNBC, launched in 1996 as a joint venture between the network software giant Microsoft, that is attempting to slug it out nightly with more highly rated competitors on CNN and Fox News Channel.

Despite such established programs as ``Hardball with Chris Matthews,'' ``The News With Brian Williams'' and ``Headlines & Legends'' hosted by Lauer, MSNBC is still looking for star power to counter CNN's ``Larry King Live'' and ``The O'Reilly Factor'' on Fox.

To that end, it was announced this spring that daytime talk show pioneer Phil Donahue would be joining the cable channel to host a nightly topical news show.

NBC News has editorial control over MSNBC, which gets its content from the network's news division as well as its affiliated stations. Content also comes from ``Dateline NBC,'' the popular program hosted by Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips, which in 1992 finally put an end to the networks' struggle over several decades to launch a successful newsmagazine franchise.

The network also owns 32 percent of PAX-TV, the ``feel good'' network that has carved its niche by airing reruns of such popular network shows as ``Touched By An Angel'' and ``Diagnosis Murder.''

But the PAX partnership has turned sour, particularly since the acquisition of Telemundo last fall. Bud Paxson, chairman of PAX-parent Paxson Communications, is in a legal battle with the network, charging that its purchase of Telemundo has had unfavorable ramifications for his network.

Still, that conflict has done little to melt the icing on the network's birthday cake during its 75th birthday year.

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Drawing:

(color) NBC, GE logos

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist