By Graham K. Rogers

In December 2010, as part of a process that seemed like an attempt to make the public more aware of Tim Cook, Brian Williams of NBC's Rock Center, spent some time with the CEO of Apple who was hand-picked by Steve Jobs. The program was filmed in the Grand Central Apple Store with additional video input to fill out the information.

Rock Center may not have hit the sweet spot that such extended-interview programs must find and NBC executives were apparently dissatisfied with ratings (instant success only acceptable). They changed the program times about initially, confusing some viewers, and have now cancelled the program, Jack Mirkinson reports, after 76 episodes (just short of Star Trek's 79).

Williams is apparently "displeased" and feels "insulted". The NBC broadcast pages have not yet been updated to reflect the change: it is Sunday, after all (Murkinson's report was posted 9:43 am EDT on Saturday).

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.