New York , February 20, 2007 – In an exclusive interview, FORTUNE's Tim Arango spoke with outgoing chairman of NBC Universal Bob Wright about a variety of topics including the future of the network, prior failed attempts to sell the network, his former boss, Jack Welch, and his successor Jeff Zucker, among others .  During the interview, Wright raised an interesting scenario: Early next year Time Warner can separate its cable business from its content businesses without incurring a large tax liability—an event, he says, that could spur efforts to combine NBC Universal and Time Warner, parent of FORTUNE 's publisher. “It would be a great combination,” he says.   The interview, “Bob Wright's Next Move,” appears in the March 5 issue of FORTUNE and is currently available at www.fortune.com .

In 1986, when Robert Wright went from running GE's finance division to running NBC, David Letterman joked that his new boss was going to order up a miniseries on the toaster oven. Twenty-one years later, Wright has had the last laugh—expanding the stand-alone network into a diversified media giant, thanks in part to 2003's $14 billion acquisition of Universal's movie and cable properties. Last month, a few days after Wright announced he was stepping down, GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt called speculation that GE was looking to sell NBC “stupid drivel.” Wright, who retains the title of GE vice chairman, begs to differ, claiming he wouldn't be surprised if the company eventually spins the network off.

When asked about the possibility of GE spinning off NBC Universal in the next three to five years, Wright said, “I wouldn't be surprised. I also think Immelt means exactly what he says. He wants it to be successful, and he wants it to stay part of GE. I understand that very well, because when this business is operating well, it's a very attractive part of GE. And where it can be difficult is, if something isn't perfect in the business, its imperfections become a noisy part of a company like GE. There may well come a time, and I'm not saying it's anytime [soon], where the fit isn't as good as he'd like. And he has to manage his portfolio.”

Wright also discussed two separate occasions when the network was almost sold, including a 12- to 14-hour period in 1994 when half the network was sold to Disney, with the expectation that they could buy the rest of it.  “By the time [Disney's then-chairman and CEO] Michael Eisner went to bed and woke up the next morning, he had changed his mind. There was another period where we were basically sold to Marty Davis . That was the Paramount entity, Gulf & Western.” [Davis, who was looking to either buy a network or sell the studio, ultimately sold Paramount to Viacom in 1993.]

Regarding the decision for Jeff Zucker to replace Wright sooner than had been expected, Wright explained, “ I had made a commitment to stay here through my 65th birthday, which is next year…  What changed was that Jeff Immelt became convinced that it was the right time for Jeff Zucker to do it. And he also became convinced that it was the right time for him, Jeff Immelt, to take a major leadership position with NBC Universal.”

Finally, when asked about the state of his relationship with his old boss, former GE chairman and CEO Jack Welch, Wright remarked. “He just went into a different world. And I think Jack just wanted to distance himself as much as he could from the things he was doing when he was chairman. He got involved in this very messy divorce with his wife. He moved to Boston , and he did a whole bunch of other things. He changed his life around 180 degrees. And that's fine. I see him occasionally— I just don't see him like I used to see him.”

 

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