Los Angeles ? “The West Wing” will serve two more seasons, but it’s definitely curtains for “Friends” after next season, NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker said Friday.

“Yes, ‘Friends’ will be back next year. And yes, that will be the final season. … The door is not open after that,” Zucker told the Television Critics Assn.

Calling the White House drama and the ensemble comedy the “cornerstones” of the network, Zucker predicted they will help keep NBC dominant in the ratings next season.

“The West Wing” was picked up for two more years with the possibility of a third season, Zucker said. He declined to discuss how much NBC is paying Warner Bros. Television for it, but reports have pegged the price at $5 million to $7 million per episode.

The new fee is less than NBC might have been forced to shell out if the drama’s ratings hadn’t dipped this season, particularly among younger viewers drawn to ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.”

Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, said 18 episodes of Friends will air during the 2003-04 season, the comedy's final year. On Friday Zucker also announced that The

Last week, against the debut of “The Bachelorette,” “The West Wing” posted its lowest-rated episode since the first-season finale.

NBC initially didn’t expect “Friends” to return for a 10th season. It was assumed the cast, including Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry, was ready for the show’s end — despite the $1 million per episode each actor receives.

But the show had a creative renaissance in the last two seasons and “everyone associated with the show decided it was too much fun to give up,” he said.

Still, he said, it took “time and patience” to woo the cast back, and the producers also had to determine they had another season’s worth of stories in them. It was announced in December it would be back.