Andrew Lack is the current chairman of not just NBC News but also MSNBC. Currently, his name has come up in the news because of the recent firing of Matt Lauer because of sexual misconduct, which has raised questions about how it was allowed to continue happening for so long.
Here are five things that you may or may not have known about Andrew Lack:
He Used to Do Some Acting
Before Lack became an executive, he was a producer. However, before Lack was a producer, it is interesting to note that he did some acting of his own. To be exact, he acted in some commercials as well as one off-Broadway production before going on to become a producer of commercials, which in turn, led to the future course of his career.
He Joined NBC to Restore Credibility
In 1993, Lack was hired to serve as the president of NBC News, which was a move intended to restore confidence in that part of the business following an incident on Dateline. For those who are curious, what happened was that Dateline did a segment on truck safety. However, it seems that the people behind the series decided to set up an explosion instead of just reporting on the truth of things, which unsurprisingly, caused a lot of people to lose trust in the series.
Led the Sony BMG Merger
Lack’s time as the president of NBC News was a huge success, which is why he went on to serve in a number of executive positions at a number of companies. For example, he became both the CEO and the Chairman of Sony Music Entertainment in 2003, which was at a rough time in the music industry because of file-sharing services. However, Lack oversaw the merger of Sony Music Entertainment with BMG to create Sony BMG, which went on to take a strong interest in TV programming because of his leadership.
He Joined NBC the Second Time to Restore Credibility
In 2015, Lack returned to NBC because once again, its credibility had been weakened by Brian Williams’s misrepresentation of some things that had happened when he was covering the Iraq War. However, it should be noted that there were other concerns as well such as the fall in ratings for both Today and MSNBC.
He Is Facing Serious Questions At the Moment
Currently, Lack is facing some serious questions because of the sexual misconduct of Matt Lauer. Simply put, Lack and the rest of NBC’s top management have denied that they knew anything about Lauer’s activities in this regard, but there are a lot of people out there who are wondering how this was possible. Something that is not helped by the well-known fact that Lack and Lauer are close friends. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that NBC has run into some other problems as well over the course of Lack’s recent stint as its chairman, with examples ranging from the sexual misconduct of the talent booker Matt Zimmerman to a choice to not run Ronan Farrow’s story on Harvey Weinstein, thus leading to him taking it to The New York Times.
Follow Us
