![]() ABC had a surprise hit with ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' and CBS triumphed with its own cheap reality show, ''Survivor.'' HBO lured away adult audiences with sophisticated short-run series like ''The Sopranos'' other cable channels siphoned off yet more viewers and legions have abandoned the medium altogether. The cost of producing an ensemble show like ''E.R.'' went through the roof. Law,'' ''E.R.'' and ''Seinfeld.'' The television game was like checkers, with NBC always leaping over its rivals and shouting, ''King me!'' Then things changed. For years, NBC was the dominant network, largely because of the success of smart series like ''Cheers,'' ''L.A. Zucker's skill as a showman is crucial at a moment when television audiences have become distressingly fickle - and most conventional wisdom about what works on television no longer holds. ![]() Having spent years coming up with one trick after another for ''Today'' - from staging weddings in Rockefeller Plaza to dressing Matt Lauer in Jennifer Lopez's Versace dress - he knows how to create a sensation. Reality shows are simply stunts that have morphed into a genre, and Zucker knows how to do stunts well. In a way, that was the whole point: to get America talking about an NBC show in the middle of the summer lull. Indeed, Zucker must have known that a shock-driven show like ''Fear Factor,'' in which contestants are asked to eat sheep eyeballs and lie in coffins filled with rats, would be attacked by critics. But Zucker, who seems to view self-doubt as an unnecessary emotion, was confident that he would succeed in his new job. He had no experience in entertainment, had never developed a comedy or a drama, had never orchestrated a fall schedule. Zucker, who is 36, was, until last November, the executive producer of the ''Today'' show in New York. ''But 'Fear Factor' is fun,'' he says dispassionately. ''All anyone can talk about is 'Fear Factor,''' he continues, referring to the NBC hit that is the latest - and grossest - addition to the rapidly growing reality genre. He is wearing a striped button-down shirt and khakis, his daily uniform. ''The critics think I've ruined television.'' ''I've destroyed everything,'' he says dryly one July afternoon in his office at NBC headquarters in Burbank, Calif. Ten months ago, when jeff zucker became president of NBC Entertainment, he did not expect to be held responsible for the death of quality television.
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