Jeff Zucker Interview…

New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman interviews Jeff Zucker. Most of it covers familiar well worn territory concerning the election and Trump. But there were a few bits that had me interested…

I noticed that Trump is sitting down with Fox & Friends. And in recent days, he’s given interviews to The Wall Street Journal and the Times of London, both Murdoch papers. What do you think of Trump’s alliance with Murdoch?

I think you’re trying to goad me here. But you’ve made the right observation. Look, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that friendly outlets have been the ones that have ended up with the interviews with Donald Trump. Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the Times of London — the fact that they’re all Rupert’s publications — I don’t think it’s any coincidence those are the outlets that ended up with the interviews.

It was reported that MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve. They said it was because they were trying to get an interview with Trump. Was it appropriate for journalists to attend the president-elect’s private party?

I think in that case, optically, it would have been a lot better to have just made a phone call and ask for the interview.

Shots fired…and will probably be returned in short order…

You had the biggest night in cable-news history on Election Night, 13 million viewers. What’s your plan to maintain ratings in 2017?

Our viewership continues to be significantly higher than it was a year ago and frankly much higher than we expected it to be. There’s been no evidence of any falloff at all. I think people are coming to us because they know we’ll report both sides of the story. We expected we’d be down 25 percent from last year because you had all the election nights, debates, and conventions, but if the first three weeks of this year are any indication, I’m not so sure it will be down that much.

Let’s wait a quarter or two and see. I still expect the numbers to tail off though the way the press covers Trump and the way Trump plays the press and all the hostility between the two will probably keep the numbers higher than they would be for any other incoming administration that doesn’t have to deal with a raging crisis.