30 Facts About Jeff Zucker

Jeffrey Adam Zucker was born on April 9,1965 and is an American former media executive.

Between January 2013 and February 2022, Zucker was the president of CNN Worldwide.

Jeff Zucker served as an executive in residence at Columbia Business School.

Jeff Zucker was born into a Jewish family in Homestead, Florida, near Miami, on April 9,1965.

Jeff Zucker's father, Matthew Zucker, was a cardiologist, and his mother, Arline, was a school teacher.

Jeff Zucker was a captain of the North Miami Senior High School tennis team, editor of the school paper, and a teenage freelance reporter for The Miami Herald.

Jeff Zucker was president of the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, during his senior year.

Jeff Zucker graduated from Harvard in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts in American history.

Jeff Zucker introduced the program's trademark outdoor rock concert series and was in charge as Today moved to the "window on the world" Studio 1A in Rockefeller Plaza in 1994.

Jeff Zucker is credited with managing the show during its most successful years and launching it into its 16 years of ratings dominance.

Jeff Zucker kept the network ahead of the pack by airing the gross out show Fear Factor, negotiating for the cast of the hit series Friends to take the series up to a tenth season, and signing Donald Trump for the reality show The Apprentice.

Jeff Zucker is credited with the idea to extend Friends episodes by 10 minutes and convinced the cast to extend their contracts by two years.

The Jeff Zucker era produced a spike in operating earnings for NBC, from $532 million the year he took over to $870 million in 2003.

Jeff Zucker originated the idea of airing "Supersized" episodes of NBC's comedies and aggressively programming in the summer months as cable networks began to draw away viewers with original programming from the network's rerun-filled summer slate.

Jeff Zucker was responsible for all programming across the company's television properties, including network, news, cable, sports and Olympics.

Jeff Zucker's responsibilities included the company's studio operations and global distribution efforts.

On February 6,2007, Jeff Zucker became president and CEO of NBC Universal.

In 2010, in response to a public controversy over the network's reported rescheduling of late-night hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, Los Angeles Times reporters Meg James and Matea Gold wrote that Jeff Zucker's tenure had led to "a spectacular fall by the country's premier television network" and dubbed the intra-network feud and subsequent public relations fallout "one of the biggest debacles in television history".

Under Jeff Zucker NBC fell from being the number one rated network to the lowest rated of the four broadcast networks and was occasionally being beaten in the ratings by programming on some of the more popular cable channels.

Jeff Zucker worked with fellow NBC News alum, former Today host Katie Couric, producing her daytime talk show for Disney-ABC Domestic Television, Katie.

However, Jeff Zucker left the show to be the president of CNN Worldwide.

Jeff Zucker became president of CNN Worldwide on January 1,2013.

Jeff Zucker's appointment was widely welcomed by the network and its anchors.

Anderson Cooper told colleagues that Jeff Zucker was "the first CNN president to actually watch CNN".

In December 2013, Jeff Zucker stated that his goal for the channel was to offer an "attitude and a take" to viewers, with a larger focus on reality-style documentary series.

Jeff Zucker explained that he wanted CNN to appeal more to regular viewers of factual networks, and make larger investments into the network's digital properties.

However, Jeff Zucker still insisted that news remained CNN's first priority, and that these programs could be preempted for continuing coverage of breaking news events when needed.

On February 2,2021, Jeff Zucker announced he would step down at the end of the year.

In 1996, Jeff Zucker married Caryn Stephanie Nathanson, then a supervisor for Saturday Night Live, with whom he has four children; the two divorced in 2017.

In July 2018, Jeff Zucker took a six-week leave of absence from CNN to recover from heart surgery.