New York ? Want to get an NBC executive’s blood boiling? Just suggest that “Dateline NBC” may have besmirched its reputation with its series of shows about the network’s entertainment fare.

“I took some grief from the critics,” NBC News President Neal Shapiro said. “I think the audience was totally understanding.”

In one month, NBC’s signature newsmagazine devoted some five hours of programming to the season finale of “The Apprentice” and the finales of “Friends” and “Frasier.”

No one argues they weren’t legitimate stories. Other networks, newspapers and magazines all covered them. More than 105 million people watched the three shows.

Yet the programming was evidence, to some, of skewed priorities. Competitor “60 Minutes II” provided a clear contrast last month by unearthing photos of alleged prisoner abuse by Americans in Iraq.

CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves, addressing thousands of advertisers recently, couldn’t resist needling NBC.

“While ‘Dateline NBC’ was busy shilling for ‘Friends’ and ‘Frasier,’ our two editions of ’60 Minutes’ were breaking news that will change the world forever,” he said.

Certainly CBS shouldn’t be exempt from criticism. Its aggressive coverage of “Survivor” on “The Early Show” set a template for the promotion of entertainment within a news broadcast.

In a broader context, NBC’s choice illustrates how viewer demand is tilting the mix of network newsmagazines more toward celebrity and entertainment news, something Barbara Walters pointed out a few months ago in stepping down as host of ABC’s “20/20.”

David Schwimmer, left, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox Arquette, Paul Rudd and Lisa Kudrow appear in this scene from the series finale of NBC's Friends in this undated file photo. Dateline

Shapiro said the audience always has understood that “Dateline NBC” offers a variety of stories. Overshadowed during the past two months was a well-received “Dateline” investigation on racial profiling and Tom Brokaw’s prestigious Peabody Award for a story on affirmative action at the University of Michigan.

“If Time magazine or Newsweek decides to devote 15 pages to Harry Potter, I don’t think people say, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t read the front of Time magazine anymore,”‘ he said. “I think they understand it’s a magazine.”

“Dateline NBC” offered hourlong tributes when “Cheers” and “Seinfeld” left the air, he said.

If the big events on “The Apprentice,” “Friends” and “Frasier” hadn’t happened within a month of one another, Shapiro believes no one would have noticed the “Dateline NBC” stories.

But what’s disappointing is that each hour represents less time that NBC News could be digging into the fragile state of the world, said Marquette University professor Philip Seib, author of “Beyond the Front Lines: How the News Media Cover a World Shaped by War.”

“It’s condescending to the audience,” Seib said. “I think it assumes the audience would rather have an hour of promotion than news.”

But NBC executives believe they are serving their audience, and their business.

“The shows we did that people have issues with, the audience certainly watched,” Shapiro said. “There’s no doubt about that. The ratings speak for themselves.”