NBC page
{{Short description|12-month paid fellowship with NBC}}
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File:NBC Page Uniform (6279769410).jpg, who portrayed NBC page Kenneth Parcell on 30 Rock]]
The NBC Page Program is a 12-month paid fellowship at the NBCUniversal studios in New York City and Universal City, California.{{Cite web|url=https://pageprogram.nbcunicareers.com/|title=NBCUniversal Page Program {{!}} NBC Universal Page Program|website=pageprogram.nbcunicareers.com|language=en|access-date=2018-05-07}} Pages contribute to various teams while on business, consumer, and content assignments. East Coast pages also give tours and work in audience services at NBC Studios in New York City. Notable people who began their careers as NBC pages include Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Regis Philbin, Michael Eisner, Ted Koppel, Trevor Moore and Aubrey Plaza.{{cite news|last1=Rose|first1=Lacey|title=21 NBC Pages Turned Hollywood Players Tell All: Johnny Carson Sightings, Calls From the President, TV Cameos|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/21-nbc-pages-turned-hollywood-players-tell-all-johnny-carson-sightings-calls-president-tv-c|access-date=April 11, 2018|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=April 17, 2017|language=en}}
Background
File:NBC Page giving tour in 2009.jpg.]]
NBC began the page program in 1933 at its Rockefeller Center headquarters,{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cCUbAAAAIBAJ&pg=2057,997741&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Radio Chiefs Train Studio Guides For Bigger Posts In Broadcasting|author=Steinhauser, Si|date=8 May 1935|publisher=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=27 November 2010}} later expanding it to the West Coast studios in Universal City. In the 1950s, NBC also offered page positions at their owned-and-operated stations, such as WRC in Washington, D.C. where future Today Show personality Willard Scott was an NBC page.
Selection is highly competitive, with only 212 pages selected a year out of more than 16,000 applicants.{{cite web|url=http://www.nbcunicareers.com/page-program|website=NBCUniversal Careers|access-date=9 December 2014|title=Home | NBCUnicareers}} With around 1.5 percent of applicants accepted to the program, becoming an NBC page is more competitive than gaining admission to Ivy League universities.{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/life-of-an-nbc-page-isnt-quite-like-30-rock/2011/05/11/AFiTX00G_blog.html | newspaper=The Washington Post | first=Jenna | last=Johnson | title=Life of an NBC page isn't quite like '30 Rock' | date=2011-05-12}} Past pages describe the interview process as grueling, as the company seeks the best corporate image to present to the public.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/nyregion/14page.html|title=For NBC Pages, 'Please Follow Me' Is a Fervent Wish|last1=Buckley|first1=Cara|date=October 13, 2008|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 11, 2018}}
Pages regularly get to work on such programs as The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. Pages also rotate through assignments in public relations (PR), marketing, development, TV music services, and production in a variety of shows and special projects. Many pages go on to careers with NBC or other broadcast media, and a number have become celebrities or leaders of the industry in their own right.
In popular culture
In the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, produced by former Saturday Night Live head writer Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer portrays a zealous, smiling, do-good NBC page named Kenneth Parcell, who appears as a page through the show's seven seasons despite pages usually only being employed for a year. And while pages are usually in their 20s, it is a running joke on the show that Kenneth is unrealistically old (indeed, that he is immortal) based on his looks. (For example, in Season 5's "When it Rains, it Pours", Kenneth is seen nostalgically packing away a signed photograph of Fred Allen from 1947, dedicated: "Kenneth, you're the TOPS!" into a box marked "NBC Memories 1945-1967".)
The Team Members of the theme park attraction Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, at Universal Studios Florida, are dressed as NBC pages as part of the theming of the attraction, which is housed in a replica of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where NBC Studios are located.
Notable NBC pages
Image:Garroway.jpg, former NBC page]]
Notable former NBC pages include:
- Tex Antoine (1943), weather forecaster
- Chuck Barris, TV producer and personality
- Pierce Brown, science fiction author, Red Rising saga
- Jim Case, television director and producer
- Clay Cole (1957), producer/writer and television host {{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/arts/television/24cole.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=clay%20cole&st=cse|title=Clay Cole, Host of TeenageDance Shows, dies at 72| work=The New York Times|access-date=27 December 2010|first=William|last=Grimes|date=24 December 2010}}
- Michael Eisner (1963), former CEO of The Walt Disney Company
- Dave Garroway (1938), Today Show host{{Cite book|editor-last=Murray|editor-first=Michael D.|title=Encyclopedia of television news|year=1998|pages=336|publisher=Greenwood|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J3fhcUnCC1AC&q=dave+garroway&pg=PA88|isbn=1-57356-108-8|access-date=July 15, 2010}}
- Sara Haines (2000), The View co-host, former NBC's Today Show correspondentBarber-Just, Christina, [http://alumnae.smith.edu/cms/?spotlight=live-on-today-2 "Live on Today: Sara Haines '00 makes her mark on America's number one morning show"], SAQ, Spring 2010, Smith College Alumni Association
- Edd Hall (1979), Tonight Show announcer
- Kate Jackson, actress, Charlie's Angels
- Stu Kerr, television personality
- Ted Koppel (1960), ABC-TV news reporter
- Bill Leyden, game show host
- Trevor Moore (2003), comedian, The Whitest Kids U' Know{{cite web|url=http://prestonandsteve.libsyn.com/daily-feed-03-21-13 |title=WMMR's Preston and Steve Podcast |publisher=Prestonandsteve.libsyn.com |date= |accessdate=March 7, 2015}}
- Sona Movsesian, media personality and executive assistant to Conan O'Brien
- Regis Philbin (1955), TV personality, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
- Aubrey Plaza (2005), actress, Parks & Recreation, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
- Gene Rayburn, Match Game host{{Cite news|url=https://americanprofile.com/articles/gene-rayburn-match-game/|title=Announcer Gene Rayburn|date=2003-10-05|work=American Profile|access-date=2018-11-06|language=en-US}}
- Joan Rivers, comedian
- Eva Marie Saint (1944), actress, The Trip to Bountiful, On the Waterfront
- Willard Scott (1950), Today Show weather reporter, creator and original performer of Ronald McDonald{{cite web|title=Willard Scott — Weather Reporter and Centenarian|publisher=MSNBC|date=2004-12-10|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6694523 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041211192233/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6694523/ |url-status=live |archive-date=2004-12-11 |access-date=February 4, 2008}}
- Michael Shure, Current TV host{{cite web|url=http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-war-rooms-michael-shure-dishes-on-current-tv-tom-brokaw-and-dan-abrams/ |title=The War Room's Michael Shure Dishes On Current TV, Tom Brokaw, And Dan Abrams |publisher=Mediaite |date=2013-06-24 |access-date=2013-09-03}}
- Lara Spencer, Good Morning America co-anchor, Nightline and ABC News correspondent{{cite news |url= https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204488304574433241217390638 |title=Lara Spencer and 'The Insider'|first= Sarah E.|last= Needleman|work=The Wall Street Journal |date= 2009-09-29|publisher=Dow Jones |location=New York |issn=0099-9660 |access-date=11 December 2013}}
- Efrem Zimbalist Jr., actor, 77 Sunset Strip, The F.B.I.{{cite news |title=Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Star of '77 Sunset Strip' and 'The F.B.I.', Dies at 95 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/arts/television/efrem-zimbalist-jr-star-of-77-sunset-strip-and-the-fbi-is-dead-at-95.html |access-date=June 9, 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=May 3, 2014}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.nbcunicareers.com/leadership/ East Coast Page Program]
- [http://www.tonightshowinfo.com/TonightShowNBCJobs.htm "Tonight Show" page information]
- [http://www.nbcunicareers.com/page-program NBC Universal Page Program career information page and quick facts]
Category:Mass media occupations
Category:Entertainment occupations