So Friday afternoon we threw together a little post trying to make sense of a power shakeup at NBC that saw Katherine Pope and a number of other NBC executives nudged out. In our typical, lightly inflammatory reporting-fashion, we headlined it, "Jeff Zucker Sends Out 'You're Fired Unless Your Name Is Ben Silverman' All-Staff NBC Memo." As of today, however, that headline is more or less accurate.

Nikki Finke reports of another, larger round of executive decapitations:

The names I'm hearing: Katie O'Connell is EVP of NBC net drama development. Erin Gough is EVP head of comedy development at the studio. Elisa Roth is EVP head of drama development at the studio. Ted Frank was in current programming. And Libby Hansen was the No. 2 to axed NBC reality czar Craig Plestis. And Lauren Stein, who was the No. 2 in drama development at the studio under Elisa Roth.

Meanwhile, THR is reporting NBC would confirm none of the dismissals on a conference call with reporters today, hosted by Last Execs Standing: co-chair's Marc Graboff and the evergolden Ben Silverman. In it, Graboff justified the bloodbath as necessary fat-trimming that goes hand-in-hand with Jeff Zucker's already proposed plan of dropping hours, and possibly entire days, of original NBC programming:

During the call, NBC executives emphasized they will continue to buy projects from third-party studios and that Universal Media Studios will continue selling programming to other networks. NBC co-chair Marc Graboff billed the shakeup as an effort to become a more streamlined and creative-friendly company, saying that TV writers have been getting "noted to death by our executives" under the structure of separate scripted divisions.

How has Survivor: Burbank finalist Ben Silverman been coping throughout this mass execucide? Turbo-slaloming down the slopes, it turns out, in Deer Valley. We're glad at least to see that everyone's headed in the same general direction.