Chapter 41 : New Ownership
Jack's face was on every screen in the building simultaneously.
This was the specific technical achievement of an institution that had planned the moment — the lobby screens, the studio monitors, the elevator panels that usually showed the day's schedule, all of them carrying the same feed at the same moment. The lobby had the quality of a space that had been asked to contain something larger than its usual purpose. Staff stood in clusters or didn't cluster at all, the social geometry of people responding to the same event from different distances.
Albert had been in the writers' room since eight. He came down to the lobby when Kenneth sent a text — Mr. Donaghy is about to make an announcement, everyone is gathering — and stood near the back of the assembly.
"This morning, NBC Universal completed its acquisition by Kabletown, a Philadelphia-based cable and communications leader," Jack said from the screens, in the voice he used for things he'd decided and was presenting as good news. "This is a transformative moment for our network, and I am proud to welcome Kabletown's leadership and resources to the NBC family."
The logo behind him shifted. The familiar NBC peacock — the one that had been on Albert's first page uniform, the one that was on Kenneth's jacket, the one that existed in varying qualities of enamel and gold across the building — was replaced by a new design. A cable coil and satellite dish arranged in the shape of a K.
Temporary, Jack said. While the transition was ongoing.
Nobody looked like they thought it was temporary.
The writers' room at 9:20 AM had the quality of a room that had received information and was deciding what to do with it. Liz was at the whiteboard, which she'd erased entirely and hadn't rewritten. Pete had both clipboards — the production one and the budget one — and was dividing his attention between them with the focused expression of someone doing triage. Frank's hat said something Albert couldn't read from this angle. Toofer had three legal pads open simultaneously, which was new.
"Networks get bought," Liz said, to the room. "Shows survive network purchases. Our job is the same today as it was yesterday." She said this with the specific conviction of a person who had spent the commute rehearsing it for themselves and was now delivering it outward. "We have a script review at ten and a pitch session at two and those are happening."
"What about the talent roster review?" Toofer said.
"What talent roster review?"
"Kabletown standard acquisition protocol includes a three-month talent and asset evaluation for all properties they acquire. I read their public filings." He paused. "I also went to Harvard, where we studied mergers and acquisitions."
Liz looked at him. "When did you read their public filings?"
"This morning. On the subway."
Pete made a note.
"There will be an evaluation," Liz said, absorbing this. "That's standard. We show well in evaluations because we do good work." She turned back to the whiteboard and picked up the marker. "Script review at ten."
Albert was at his desk with his coffee — the mug from Kenneth, which he'd been bringing in every day since Friday — and running the Divergence Tracking room in his mind without entering the Palace. He'd updated it extensively over the three months since the promotion, and the Kabletown section had been tagged yellow since November when he'd first projected the acquisition timing shifting forward. Now it had turned red.
Canon: Kabletown acquired NBC in Season 4 of the show. Season 4 was approximately three years from now. The acquisition was, in the show, a comedy backdrop — Hank Hooper's folksy CEO routine, the cultural mismatch between a Philadelphia cable company and a Manhattan entertainment operation, the various plots it generated. It had been largely benign.
Reality: Kabletown had acquired NBC in January 2007, roughly three years ahead of canon timeline, driven by a series of factors Albert had identified in the Corporate Archive — a Sheinhardt Wig Company SEC investigation that had destabilized NBC's parent structure earlier than in the original timeline, combined with Kabletown's accelerated acquisition strategy, combined with TGS's improved ratings making NBC's entertainment portfolio look more attractive.
The improved TGS ratings were, in significant part, traceable to Albert's presence.
He had made TGS more visible. Visibility had attracted Kabletown's interest ahead of schedule. Kabletown had acquired the thing he'd made more valuable, and now they were going to evaluate it.
He had approximately three years of meta-knowledge about how Kabletown operated. The knowledge was tagged yellow — conditional, dependent on conditions he'd already changed. The Hank Hooper he'd watched on television was a Season 4 Hooper arriving in a specific corporate environment. The Hooper arriving next week was arriving three years earlier, with a TGS that was performing above its historical baseline and a writing staff that included someone who hadn't been in the show at all.
"Don't judge me, the company just got sold," Liz said, to no one in particular, producing a Snickers bar from her desk drawer and unwrapping it with the focus of someone who had decided this was breakfast.
"I'm not judging you," Albert said.
She ate the Snickers at her desk and looked at the blank whiteboard and then started writing the script review notes that needed to go on it before ten.
Frank leaned over to Albert. "She stress-eats the Snickers when things are uncertain," he said quietly. "She stress-eats the brie when things are bad. If she comes in with both, we're in trouble."
Albert filed this in the Liz Lemon section of the Palace, under Stress Indicators — Calibration.
"Noted," he said.
Jack's announcement ran on loop on the lobby screens until 11 AM, when it was replaced by the standard scheduling display. The Kabletown logo sat at the bottom-right corner of the display in a smaller version of the acquisition graphics, the cable coil and satellite dish, permanent-looking despite the assurances.
Hank Hooper, Kabletown CEO, would visit 30 Rock next week to meet the talent. Kenneth had sent Albert the memo three hours ago. He'd filed it in the Palace's corporate section — new room, labeled Kabletown — Active — and had been thinking about it all morning.
The memo used the word assess twice and the word opportunities four times. Albert had cross-referenced Hooper's public statements from Kabletown's recent earnings calls in the Entertainment Archive's corporate supplemental section. Hooper said opportunities when he meant cuts and assess when he meant decide. That was the reading from the Kabletown transcript archive, which was three years in the future and therefore tagged yellow.
He picked up his pen. The pitch session was at two. He had a sketch concept that needed refinement before then.
He wrote.
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