NBC Executive Shows Clear Eye for the Straight Hit
Jeff Gaspin '82

Growing up in Queens, Jeff Gaspin always figured he'd become a doctor or a lawyer. So when he left Bayside and set off for college in the late 1970s, he enrolled as a pre-med student. For two and a half years he took a heavy dose of biology and chemistry courses and studied hard.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the med boards. Instead of becoming a healer of ailing bodies, Gaspin became a healer of ailing TV networks, patching them up with fresh hit programs. Two decades after college graduation, the 43-year-old Binghamton alumnus is now a top TV programming executive for NBC Universal in Burbank, Calif.

Recently promoted to president of NBC Universal Cable and cross-platform strategy, Gaspin runs NBC's expanded lineup of four cable entertainment networks — Bravo, USA Network, Sci Fi Channel and Trio. He's also responsible for reality series, specials and TV movies for all of NBC's broadcasting and cable properties. Not bad for a kid from Queens who never imagined a career in the TV business.

" It's just certainly not something I planned," he said. "All my friends wanted to be doctors and lawyers. Only when I was forced to make a decision did I realize I should do something I wanted."

In Hollywood circles, Gaspin is best known these days for picking the runaway cable hit, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a quirky, gay-themed makeover series now in its second season on Bravo. Gaspin, who inherited the pilot for the show when NBC took over the artsy cable network in December 2002 and put him in charge, gave the program the green light after sensing its mainstream potential.

" I felt it could wake up the network and the audience," he said. "I didn't know it'd be successful. But I knew it'd be talked about . . . It's what the network desperately needed."

Gaspin proved to be right. Since debuting on Bravo in July 2003, Queer Eye has put the once sleepy niche network on the TV map. The hit series keeps breaking Nielsen ratings records for Bravo, ranking among the top five programs on TV each time a new episode premieres. It has also helped boost Bravo's cable and satellite TV distribution to more than 76 million homes and has improved the network's viewer demographics.

Perhaps most significantly, Queer Eye has almost single-handedly shaped a new image for Bravo as "a hip and cool network for a young, hip crowd," Gaspin recently told The New York Times. The series has also spurred the development of other edgy shows for Bravo, including: Boy Meets Boy, a gay dating reality series; Celebrity Poker Showdown; and the inevitable spin-off, Queer Eye for the Straight Girl.

Gaspin credits the popularity of Queer Eye to its sense of humor, "provocative title" and five "terrific" hosts, as well as TV viewers' familiarity with the makeover genre. "It has a lot of heart and humor in it," he said. "Sometimes the planets align for ideas."

But he and other Bravo and NBC executives also deserve credit for putting their faith in Queer Eye. Indeed, the show's creators feared NBC would kill it when the network took over Bravo nearly two years ago.
" We put a lot of money behind it, more than anything in Bravo's history," Gaspin said. "It was the right show at the right time with the right promotion."

Queer Eye and Celebrity Poker Showdown, another surprising success for Bravo, are merely the latest in a string of hit shows for Gaspin. For NBC he has also launched such popular reality programs as The Apprentice, Fear Factor, Dog Eat Dog and Last Comic Standing. Before that at VH1, he gave the green light to the hit music documentary series, Behind The Music.

" You never know you're going to have a pop show phenomenon," he said. "It doesn't happen that often."
But it has happened often enough that Gaspin has no regrets about turning his back on a medical career. Although he did well in his pre-med program at Binghamton, he never really liked the course work. So he chucked the program in his junior year and switched to a double major in psychology and business administration.

" Finding out what you don't like is just as important as finding out what you do like," he said. "Sometimes, planning your future is a sure way of not getting it."

With his eye on finance, Gaspin then earned an MBA at New York University. But with no jobs available on Wall Street, he spotted an ad for an associates program at NBC. He spent five years in NBC's finance division before shifting to news programming at the urging of then NBC News Chief Financial Officer Michael Gartner. "He [Michael] needed somebody to handle creative," said Gaspin, who considers Gartner his mentor. "He said, 'you're the only one here who watches TV.' I thought about it and said 'great.'"

Like current NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker, a close ally, Gaspin then moved to entertainment programming. After a five-year stint at VH1, he returned to NBC three years ago. Now Gaspin, married with three kids, has four network charges to manage, too.

" It's incredibly rewarding to know you can influence others in those numbers," he said. "It's also great for my kids. It's easy for them to understand what I've done all day."

-- Alan Breznick '79