NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., fell to third in overall viewership this past season and remains stalled there, behind ABC and CBS. Though it just won Emmy awards for best comedy ("Will and Grace") and drama ("The West Wing") and holds a narrow lead so far this season in the coveted 18-49 age group, many of it younger viewers have migrated to rivals.

In the past three years, the median age of NBC's audience has risen to 45 from 41, a bad omen for advertising revenues. And, with the crucial November ratings period just around the corner, most of its new programmes are showing little long-term potential. What happened to NBC is a classic tale of the television business. It rose to the top by capturing the nation's Zeitgeist with a monster hit, cloned it aggressively, and then found itself with all the wrong shows when-inevitably-the zeitgeist abruptly changed. The monster hit was, of course, "Seinfeld." After that came "Friends" and a cavalcade of other sitcoms featuring cute young single people quipping sardonically to one another. "Seinfeld" was still No 1 when it ended its run in May 1998, but popular tastes were already evolving in another direction, toward over-the-top game shows and competitions. And NBC was too entrenched in its narrow specialty to notice the change.

This time around, underdogs ABC and CBS took chances on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor"-set on a Malaysian island-and wound up with blockbusters. ABC rode the game show to first place, and CBS dominated the June-August period of 2000 with its reality-game hybrid, picking up momentum moving into the fall season. NBC sat out the craze and then had to scramble to catch up, spending nearly $40 million on "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett's next show which promises to put an average American into space aboard the Russian space station Mir. NBC President and Chief Executive OffiCer Robert Wright calls the current season a transitional one for the network as it tries to get back to "where we were!" The burden of making that happen will fall largely to Mr Ancier and his boss, NBC West Coast President Scott Sassa who have inherited many of the network's dilemmas.

Both are under mounting pressure from GE and the network's advertisers to get results. Meanwhile, NBC remains in good financial health. Inaddition to its strong network earnings and hefty contributions from its network-owned TV stations, NBC made shrewd investments in cable-TV channels CNBC and MSNBC. When it bid for the Olympics in 1995, it used the promise of carrying Olympic events on its cable networks as leverage to secure long-term deals with cable systems to carry CNBC and MSNBC. The resulting agreements will bring it $1.5 billion in subscriber fees over the next decade. (Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Asian Wall Street Journal, provides news content to CNBC in the US and jointly owns CNBC television operations in Asia and Europe.) Even the recent Summer Olympics, though hardly the ratings bonanza NBC had hoped for, turned a modest profit for the network.

The network also remains strong in other areas. "The Today Show" in the morning and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" late at night are huge cash cows for the network, and its evening news show is No 1. Overall, NBC's earnings rose 10% to $292 million in the third quarter, primarily because of its Olympics coverage, while its revenue surged 76% to $1.8 billion. But the network's prime-time programming concerns come at a critical juncture for its parent company. GE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch, a big NBC supporter, had been expected to name a successor any day in preparation for his retirement in April. But over the weekend, Mr. Welch agreed to defer his retirement until the end of 2001 to oversee GE's newly announced acquisition of Honeywell International Inc.

He now plans to name an heir apparent by the end of the year. In July, GE made NBC's Mr Wright a corporate vice chairman, charged with the job of tutoring Mr Welch's eventual successor in the broadcast business. GE's next CEO will inherit an NBC that suddenly finds itself competing against entertainment giants. Viacom Inc. owns CBS, Walt Disney Co. owns ABC, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. owns Fox, and Time Warner Inc. owns the WB network.

These days, size matters. Viacom can promote CBS shows to young viewers on its MTV and Nickelodeon cable channels. ABC can reach that coveted audience on the Disney channel and ESPN. MSNBC and CNBC, both of which reach an older audience, don't offer the same advantages to NBC. Unlike ABC and CBS, NBC has no ties with a film studio, nor does it produce shows for other networks. That hurts NBC when it comes to negotiating deals with rival studios. Last spring, ABC parent Walt Disney was able to pressure Time Warner's WB network into keeping some of its shows, such as teendrama "Popular," in return for renewing "Norm," a sitcom from the Warner Bros.' studio. NBC's relative isolation isn't for lack of trying.

In recent years, the network has had a series of short-lived talks with other entertainment companies on forming alliances. Mr Wright says he doesn't think a film-studio alliance would necessarily make NBC more competitive. "You can't corner the market on talent," he says, adding that GE's resources should be more than adequate to allow NBC to keep up with its rivals in buying shows and attracting able producers.