Robert C. Wright succeeded the legendary Grant Tinker as president of NBC in 1986 when the "Peacock Network" was acquired  by General  Electric (GE) for $6.3 billion. Under General Electric chief executive officer Jack Welch, Wright immediately began to shape a new NBC. moving it out of radio altogether and headlong into cable television. In 1988 Wright allied with Cablevision Systems, Inc., in a $300 million deal that led in the following year to the start up of a 24-hour cable network, CNBC. He also acquired shares of the cable channel CourtTV, and of Visnews, an international video news service. Following these acquisitions, he immediately initiated selling NBC News products to hundreds of clients overseas.

     The first half of the 1990s was equally busy for Wright. The Australian Television Network became NBC's first overseas affiliate. In 1991 NBC bought out CNBC's chief rival, the Financial News Network, for well in excess of $IO0 million, closed it down, and merged its core components into CNBC. Wright in­ vested in the Super Channel, an advertising-supported satellite service based in London; began NBC Asia; and poured millions into NBC' s News Channel, a TV wire service based in Charlotte, North Carolina. But the biggest deal during the first half of the 1990s came when Wright and Bill Gates announced a multimillion ­ dollar alliance of NBC and Microsoft to create an all­ news channel. MSNBC, to rival CNN around the world.

     Wright, under the tutelage of Jack Welch, remade NBC within ten years and has served as the longest­ reigning NBC head since David Sarnoff. Like  his mentor Welch, Wright comes from a Catholic house­ hold, is the son of an engineer, did not go to an Ivy League college, is devoted to GE, and is no fan of television. Wright had entered the  GE  corporate  ladder as a staff attorney but quickly moved to the decision-making side, running GE's plastic sales division (19 78- 80), working as the head of the  house­ wares and audio equipment division (1983 - 8 4), and being promoted to the presidency of GE Financial Services (198 4- 86).

Wright's first ten years at NBC were not without failure. Most notably he led NBC to well in excess of $50 million in losses by way of its pay-per-view venture Triplecast during the 1992 Olympics . But his years with NBC have also been filled with triumphs. He turned the cable news channels CNBC and MSNBC into profitable ventures and helped make A&E and the History Channel into popular cable networks. Because of such successes, GE promoted him in June 2001 to chairman and chief executive officer of NBC and a vice president of the GE board. as the company pushed beyond the Jack Welsh era. In 2003 Wright managed GE's and NBC's purchase of Vivendi-Universal, taking the network into a new era of studio ownership and tighter vertical and horizontal integration.