Network executives are smart cookies

PASADENA, Calif. — As the latest Television Critics Association press tour gets under way, this is when I usually write a column mocking the mistakes network execs made the last time around.

It's mean. It's snarky. It's easy. It's fun.

But this time, let's look back and see how smart those execs can be. They've got tough jobs, and dealing with the likes of us can be difficult.

CBS: Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, headed off the folks at NBC — simply by humorously pointing out what those folks have consistently done over the years.

Looking at the impending move of Jay Leno to prime time, Tassler said, "Well, whatever ratings they get, they're going to declare a victory anyway, so it really doesn't matter."

That is classic NBC — even when you lose, try to spin it so it seems like you're winning. But there has been less of that than usual, in part because of Tassler pre-emptive comments.

That and the fact that it's really hard to spin it so that Leno looks like anything other than a loser.

"You look at 'NCIS' (in) its sixth year. It's crazy," Tassler said. "It just delivers a big audience, no matter where it plays. It plays on USA, on CBS, in Italy, in France, virtually everywhere. In our minds, 'NCIS' is pretty much the most underrated success story on television."

She said that before "NCIS" established itself as the top-rated show on TV this fall.

NBC: Angela Bromstad, NBC's president of prime-time programming, had the unenviable job of addressing a room full of critics who are fairly hostile to her network — the product of many years of that network's executives being hostile to critics.

And she did the best she could under the circumstances. In response to Tassler's comments, Bromstad said, "I think it's fair to say we're going to declare victories where we have them."

That has not been NBC's standard operating procedures, but what could she say?

And Bromstad was smart enough not to try to ignore reality. She acknowledged the difficulty the network has had trying to "live up to the legacy" of NBC's history. "I think we have fallen short in the past couple of years, and it's our goal to bring back those high-quality, sophisticated dramas and comedies and a brand of alternative (programming) that fits into that."

There's been little evidence of that, but that's what she needed to say.