Andrew Lack (executive)

Early life

Lack was born in New York City. He attended the Browning School, a private school in New York, studied at the Sorbonne, University of Paris and graduated from Boston University's College of Fine Arts in 1968. After graduation, he appeared as an actor in numerous television commercials and an off-Broadway production.

Career

After graduating he worked as a producer of TV commercial, joined CBS News in 1976, following the next year with "60 Minutes" and from 1978 until 1985, produced CBS Reports. He also served as correspondent on The American-Israeli Connection in 1982. Lack worked with Bill Moyers during the early 80s, as producer of both Our Times With Bill Moyers (1983) and Crossroads (1984).

CBS

In 1976, Lack was hired by 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt at CBS News as a producer for the personality-driven television show Who's Who. That led to a job as a producer for 60 Minutes. Lack produced such segments as "Inside Afghanistan" and "Kissinger and The Oil Embargo." He wrote and directed the segment "The Real Malcolm X: An Intimate Portrait of the Man."

He later became the executive producer for CBS Reports, where he stayed for seven years, followed by a four-year stint starting in 1985 as the executive producer of West 57th hosted by Meredith Vieira, a long-format news program. West 57th was known for mixing new storytelling techniques and topics with the same journalistic standards as 60 Minutes.

His work as a CBS producer includes "The Boat People" (about Vietnamese refugees), "Teddy" (about Ted Kennedy) and "The Defense of the United States" (about the Cold War) with Walter Cronkite.

NBC

Lack was hired as president of NBC News in 1993, in part to restore credibility to the news division, after it was discovered the news program Dateline had faked an explosion during a truck safety segment.

By Lack's third year, NBC Nightly News with anchor Tom Brokaw became the number-one rated evening news program, beating World News Tonight with Peter Jennings on ABC News. Lack also greatly expanded Dateline, from once weekly to multiple nights each week.

After Bryant Gumbel left the Today show, Lack replaced him with Matt Lauer. Lack also moved Today into a new, $15 million street-side studio, known as Studio 1A. With Lauer as anchor, Today became the highest-rated morning news show for the next 16 years. The cable news network MSNBC was also created under Lack.

In 2001, Lack left the news division to become president and chief operating officer of NBC, the television network.

Sony

Lack joined Sony Music Entertainment in 2003 as Chairman and CEO. Amid sharply declining sales in the music industry, Lack cut the staff by 25% to about 6,000 people.

In 2004, Lack led a merger with BMG. Lack became CEO of the new Sony BMG, a 50-50 venture with Germany's Bertelsmann that resulted in the second-largest music company in the world.

At Sony BMG, he pushed the company further into video, including television programming, and had to contend with the erosion of sales because of music file-sharing services such as Napster. In 2005, he signed Bruce Springsteen to a $110 million contract.

In 2006 he became the chairman of Sony BMG. He later created SonyBMG Films, a division that produced numerous titles including Cadillac Records starring Beyonce. In 2008 he left the company.

Bloomberg

In 2008, Lack returned to broadcast journalism, joining Bloomberg as CEO of its Media Group, running television, radio and digital properties, including 11 television channels internationally. The New York Times reported that he cut losses in half and doubled revenue. He became chairman of Bloomberg Media Group in 20013 and stayed with Bloomberg until 2014.

NBC

Lack rejoined NBC News and MSNBC in 2015 in the aftermath of a crisis generated when NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams was suspended without pay for six months for misrepresenting events which occurred while he was covering the 2003 Iraq War. NBC News also faced a decline in ratings for Today and poor ratings for MSNBC.

Lack named Lester Holt as the new anchor of NBC Nightly News to replace Williams. The show was a ratings success, coming in first for the full 2014-2015 season (four months of which was anchored by Williams).

After Williams' suspension was over, Lack decided to bring him back as the breaking news anchor for MSNBC as part of a shift toward hard-news in network's daytime programming. Lack announced closer collaboration between NBC News and MSNBC, cancelled three opinion-based daytime MSNBC shows, and gave Meet the Press host Chuck Todd a daily afternoon program called MTP Daily. MSNBC ratings subsequently improved in the first quarter of 2016, with daytime viewership up by more than 100%. Lack also unified the digital operations of NBC News and MSNBC under a new division head. Today became the first place morning news show, surpassing Good Morning America in total viewers as of March 31, 2016, following a six-month lead among the 25-54 year olds.

Personal life

Lack is married to Betsy Kenny Lack, head of global brand strategy for Snapchat, with whom he has two sons.