Apparently, not even the head of General Electric wants to turn on NBC every night.

Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of GE -- which just happens to be the parent corporation of NBC Universal -- told attendees at a Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco this week that he's not all too pleased about how few viewers NBC is attracting.

"I hate being No. 4," Immelt said, according to The Los Angeles Times. But he did remain optimistic about the future of NBC, however, saying that he "assume[s] we can be No. 1 again."

Whether that will happen during General Electric's watch has yet to be seen. With Vivendi looking for ways to unload its 20 percent share in NBC Universal, and GE apparently entertaining potential suitors like Comcast to buy them out, the future of NBC's ownership is in deep doubt.

And although NBC has been killed in the ratings for the third year running, Immelt is adamant that putting the media company on the sales block has nothing to do with its dwindling audience.

If NBC does return to No. 1i, it will have a long way to go. After six weeks since new episodes of the 2009-10 season started to air, NBC hasn't come close to winning a week. Instead, ratings have been dominated by CBS and ABC, which right now are tracking neck-in-neck for the whole season with a 7.3 rating/12 share from CBS and a 7.1/11 from ABC, based on overnight ratings of non-news, non-event programming.

NBC is tracking a 4.5/7 through Tuesday, tying it with Fox, which has been battered partly with its Friday night lineup that it has changed in time for November sweeps.

Through Tuesday, NBC is averaging a 4.2/7 in overnights, good enough for fourth place behind the 5.1/8 from Fox. CBS is leading everyone with a 7.9/13 followed by a 7.3/11 from ABC.