What does Ben Silverman, skiing enthusiast and co-chairman of craptacular NBC, do when everyone wonders why he's still employed? Judging by today's New York Post, tell his favorite outlet how great he is.

• Ben Silverman and NBC have come to terms on a new contract. [B&C]
• Jeff Bewkes is taking over as Time Warner's chairman. [Bloomberg]
• As expected, Newsweek is trimming both staff and circulation. [WSJ]
• Do his 8 Golden Globe nods mean Harvey Weinstein is on the rebound? [THR]
• CBS Interactive is restructuring and making major cuts. [PaidContent]
• Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars next February. [THR]

All eyes were on Conan last night in anticipation of what, if anything, he'd say about NBC's surprise announcement that Jay Leno would upstage his long-planned ascension to The Tonight Show throne.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Silverman Edition! 12/8 — I spotted BEN SILVERMAN in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel last night. The Video Hall of Fame event was taking place, so not sure if that's why he was there. Or maybe he just likes the Polo Lounge. much skinnier than I imagined. Eat! Eat! [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

So SAG's fucked. Wait—did we say "fucked?" There we go again—needless doomsday prophesying where Obaman cool-headedness is clearly required. What we meant to say is: "SAG's probably fucked." Yesterday brought a confluence of Pop Culture Doomsday events that not even a walrus blowing like Bird could have foretold:

Jay Leno is moving to 10 p.m., every god damn night of the week! That sure is something. You never realize how many people love Jay Leno until something like this happens (or until you find yourself in a comedy club in Winston-Salem, talking to the owner, Roy). NBC is obviously happy about it—and so is Jay, or he would have taken his middling act elsewhere—but, as in everything in showbiz, some people got screwed in this deal. After the jump, the biggest winners and losers of the Return of the Chin:

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.

"'They call her the black widow. Every program she touches turns to death,' growled our source. 'She is on very thin ice.'" That was how Page Six described Universal Media Studio President Katherine Pope (pictured) last month in a suspiciously positioned item foisting blame for the network's disastrous string of recent offerings—shows like Bionic Woman, My Own Worst Enemy, Lipstick Librarians, and freshly squeezed lemon Knight Rider—on her fetchingly exposed shoulders. Nikki Finke accuses Silverman of having leaked the items himself ("that's one of the fringe benefits of his selling his Reveille to Elisabeth Murdoch and yachting with her this summer") in her analysis of today's shakeup that saw not just Pope's exit, but that of NBC Entertainment EVP Teri Weinberg, as well. (Weinberg was the D-girl Silverman brought over from Reveille who was later discovered in the compromising position technically referred to in the business as shtupping your showrunner. Because no one ever fucks anyone they work with in Hollywood—ever.)

THR noticed something interesting in today's NBC, mid-season We're Canceling Everything New and Supersizing Anything Else That Isn't Nailed Down press release: The Knight Rider season finale was listed as airing on February 25th. Since when do super-duper, Ben Silverman-championed, beloved 1980s trash-TV remakes supposedly given full pickups end their seasons in winter, you ask?

Though Ricky Gervais's version of The Office folded up shop after two six-episode runs, that wouldn't amount to even half of a current season of the Steve Carell-toplined Office, which is continually pressed into service for hourlong episodes, spinoffs, and expanded seasons by NBC. Though the moves have pumped up ratings for the sitcom, the results are not always well-regarded by critics — or by a burnt-out cast, says Rainn Wilson:

· Damn, we would have had a spare if the stuffing didn't fall out halfway down the lane. · After eight performances, a Broadway revival of American Buffalo starring John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment has closed. The three commiserated with a night of lap dances at downmarket strip club The Spread, where a hammered Cedric sobbed "all I ever wanted to do was entertain" between sloppy titty-grabs. · We always love to trot out our favorite Thanksgiving greeting card this time of year. Be nice, fuck! · The LAT can find no evidence Ben Silverman is about to get shitcanned: "NBC would like to keep Silverman, according to people close to him. His bosses think he's been a good steward." The Good Steward. Hmm. We're seeing Matt Damon biopic potential. · A Norwegian escort (maybe he found him on a Norwegian cruise line?) testified in the Boy George HustlerNapping Trial of the Century that the singer "manacled him to a bedroom wall and beat him with a metal chain after accusing him of hacking into his computer." They said "manacled!"

♦ Alan Colmes, the "liberal" who supposedly serves as co-host of Hannity & Colmes with Sean Hannity, is leaving the Fox News program at the end of the year. [HuffPo]
♦ A daily news program hosted by Christiane Amanpour is in the works at CNN. [NYT]
♦ Despite screwing up nearly everything he touches, NBC golden boy Ben Silverman may see his contract renewed in the next few weeks. [NYM]
♦ USA Today has announced plans to cut staff. [E&P]
♦ Twilight was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, raking in $70.5 mil. [LAT]
♦ Forbes is not being sold to a shady Russian billionaire. [SAI]

We consider ourselves connoisseurs of beleaguered (but enthusiastic!) NBC chief Ben Silverman, so we were a little surprised when we heard that Kim Masters had published a rumor roundup on The Daily Beast today that included three whole paragraphs tracking speculation that Silverman might be gay. Had our gaydar been scrambled by distinctly unfabulous shows like My Own Worst Enemy and Project Lipstick, we wondered? Then we read the article, in which Masters (citing Defamer as her primary source) appears to lay out her entire same-sex case by mistaking some of our "funny ha-has" for actual, industry-pervading rumors:

We honestly wish there was some way we could dress up NBC rock star Ben Silverman's appearance on Charlie Rose last night as something more than two talking heads—albeit enviably bone-structured heads—covering the nuts and bolts of programming strategy in a 21st century, multi-platform TV jungle. Unfortunately, there isn't. So we're instead going to do the next best thing: Write some Ben on Charlie fanfic. It's after the jump!When Ben Met Charlie Chapter One: First Impressions Charlie sat in his dressing room, staring into his mirror with a paper-towel bib tucked into his shirt collar, as Joy the makeup girl dabbed concealer beneath his eyes. "No point, Joy," he said. "Couldn't hide those puffy things with cement and a trowel." "Oh Charlie," she laughed. "Don't be so hard on yourself. You're as handsome as ever." Why was he so self-conscious? He was a broadcast icon. He had interviewed heads of state, captains of industry, sports heroes and movie stars. Yet none of them disarmed him the way today's guest did—a young, handsome and charismatic network TV president whose swift rise to power he had admired from afar. A knock at the door shook Charlie back into the moment. "Come in," he said. The first thing he saw were the brows—strong and angular, and peaked towards the ends. Then he wandered slightly downward, to the nose. It was a powerful nose—a hit-sniffing nose if he had ever seen one. For a split second, he migrated up to the eyes—mesmerizing!—but quickly landed on his visitor's full, cranberry lips. They opened to speak. "Charlie—" "Ben!" Charlie said leaping up, pulling his bib out of his shirt as he threw out a hand. Ben took it in his. It felt strong, Charlie thought, and large. New, yet familiar. It was comforting. Suddenly feeling extraneous, Joy used the moment to slink out of the room. "I just wanted to say hello before the interview." "Of course, of course—please, come in. Have a—" he looked around nervously for a chair, and spotted one leaning against a shelf filled with hardcover books, most only barely thumbed through. "Have a seat! Are you a scotch man?" "Tequila, usually, but scotch will do in a pinch," Ben replied, smiling. A knock at the door alerted both men they were needed on set. Next: Chapter 2: A Game of Wits And Footsie

The recurrent bitchiness between Michael Wolff and NBC's Ben Silverman usually lapsed back into polite chatter at the Monaco Media Summit, judging from the lengthy YouTube video of a panel discussion at the Monte Carlo event. But one can't help but wonder if would-be internet mogul Wolff was more personally invested in his reference to television networks as the scapegoated "trash heap of everybody's expectations" than he let on. And calling Silverman "functionally digitally illerate" was just plain mean, as was using a vulgar expletive to refer to old media. But then sublimated envy and resentment are kind of Wolff's calling cards, so no harm, no foul! Click the video icon to watch the fireworks.

Just when it looked as though viewers were going to be cruelly deprived of their weekly life-affirming glimpse into the lives of three mistresses of the universe who always drop everything to be supportive to one other (or to engage in the most idealized cougar-cub relationship ever likely to grace our screens), Lipstick Jungle has won an eleventh-hour reprieve.

Few were surprised when NBC axed Lipstick Jungle, figuring that if a brutal, Project Runway-assisted title indoctrination couldn't help it gain a ratings foothold, nothing could. But wait! insists star Brooke Shields to Us. "It's not true," she said. "Our bosses are saying, 'You’re not canceled, don’t worry. We’re just trying to figure out how to make this make sense.'" Yes, if only a major media conglomerate like NBC could get the word out somehow! Still, James Hibberd writes that even though there's been a fan outcry (really?), there are other factors at play that may doom a new application of Lipstick:

Before the premiere of this fall season, NBC head Ben Silverman liked to brag about the extensive movie star outreach he'd done to populate his shows: Selma Blair in Kath & Kim! Christian Slater in My Own Worst Enemy! Sadly, Kath was poorly received, Enemy has just been axed (alongside another show called something like Project Lipstick, we think?), and the rest of the fall lineup is skidding out like Silverman's Knight Rider retread. You might imagine, with all this broadcast carnage, that some of it might be Silverman's fault. Nuh-unh! protests Page Six:

THR reports NBC has canceled both Christian Slater amnesiac secret agent show My Own Worst Enemy, as well as Lipstick Jungle, in which Brooke Shields leads a troop of cosmetic assassins down the Nung River to eliminate the AWOL and believed-insane Colonel Mary Kay:

How's this for a cliffhanger: ratings for NBC's Heroes have dropped precipitously this season, leading to the firing of two producers, an Entertainment Weekly cover story asking whether the show can be saved, and now, a NY Times article that lays the blame on Jeff Zucker, Ben Silverman and show creator Tim Kring. According to the media frenzy, Heroes has suddenly undergone a drastic creative plummet in its third season. Here's the thing though: the show? Never that good!Sure, when Heroes premiered in 2006, it had a couple of things going for it, namely: freshness, a good villain, and a series of wicked, show-ending cliffhangers. Still, the problems that EW and the NYT are citing in the current season were with Heroes from the start. The show has always had too many characters, and even in the first season, many lacked a compelling reason to be there. That season was clogged with storylines (like the yawn-inducing travails of narrator Mohinder) that practically demanded to be fast-forwarded through, and the revelation that the show's writers were assigned separate plotlines in each episode instead of writing full scripts on their own is only partially to blame for the show's whiplashing segues. Eventually, the more interesting characters were saddled with so many powerful abilities that they needed to be repeatedly incapacitated to move the plot along, causing heroes like the time-jumping Hiro to become annoyingly extraneous. Also, the acting is, uh... well, just watch this clip. Yeah, it's at least campy, but in a "best show on the Sci-Fi Channel" kind of way. Actually not even that, because they have Battlestar Galactica. So maybe in a "third or fourth best show on the Sci-Fi Channel" kind of way. All we're saying is that if a show is desperately hanging onto an actress like Ali Larter, it won't exactly be burning up the Emmys. Heroes doesn't need to be saved — it's always been like this. Sometimes, when the shock of the new wears off, reappraisals like this can occur (in much the same way, America has finally come to grips with its embarrassing Life is Beautiful phase). Don't head to Heroes expecting great acting, skillful plotting, and emotional resonance. Enjoy it for what it is meant to be: a showcase for Milo Ventimiglia to take off his shirt.