♦ The battle over Project Runway rages on: Harvey Weinstein is now claiming that Bravo intentionally undermined the success of Season 5 by changing the show's airtime, running "mundane and unappealing" ads, and "revealing spoilers about future episodes." [THR]
♦ Barack Obama will appear on The Daily Show tomorrow night. [AP]
♦ The New York Times is not running out of money, say execs at the paper. [NYO]
♦ MSNBC moved into second place in the primetime cable news race, beating CNN for the month of October. [THR]

Duly Noted: To us, the simple three-note structure of the famous NBC chimes leaves little room for interpretation, but then, we lack the cunning intellect of NBC head Ben Silverman. According to Variety, the network is asking musical acts like T.I., the B-52s, and the Flaming Lips to record their own twist on the theme for ads that will air between NBC's shows. Is it too much to hope for that Silverman will submit his own, Ryan-Seacrest-approved version? "Hey, dwindling Knight Rider audience! Ding DING ding!" [Variety]

By now everyone has heard Ben Silverman's soggy rationale for reintroducing 30 Rock so late in the fall season — everyone except Tina Fey, it appears, whose sit-down today with the Associated Press revealed that she doesn't know when or even if she will revive her recurring Sarah Palin gig on Saturday Night Live. An NBC spokesperson corroborated the network's uncertainty. Who to believe?Of course, that's not an especially fair question to ask any time Silverman's in the equation. But after his admitted miscalculation in scheduling three primetime SNL specials in place of Fey's eagerly awaited Emmy incumbent, he corrected hard with his insistence in Sunday's New York Times that "she would surely be on the next two SNL specials 'heavily promoting 30 Rock." But if we're to take Fey at her word, she and the SNL braintrust have yet to receive that memo:

Blergh: The New York Times is as fed up with the lack of 30 Rock as we are, noting that Tina Fey "is about the hottest star in show business at the moment" thanks to those Emmy wins, American Express commercials, and Sarah Palin guest spots, and yet the third season of the rating-challenged sitcom still hasn't yet premiered to take advantage of Fey's heat. Embattled NBC head Ben Silverman takes the blame: "If we knew then what we know today about how hot Tina was going to be, would we do it differently? Maybe." The "business juice"-quaffing Silverman then announced plans to incorporate Fey into several of his struggling new series; expect a new, Palin-like voice for KITT on Knight Rider and a Kath & Kim & Liz Lemon crossover to thrill audiences before 30 Rock's season premiere sometime in the year 2011. [NY Times]

Appletinis for Everyone: He's known as a tomcatting party boy, but at Wednesday's Outfest Legacy Awards, NBC topper Ben Silverman told the audience he had a confession to make (after first confirming that industry gossip Nikki Finke was nowhere to be found). “I debated whether or not to say this, as I am a bit of a press target," he began tentatively, cradling the "Outtie" award he accepted on behalf of NBC Universal. The well-heeled gay audience craned forward; was Ryan Seacrest's best pal "Beijing Ben" about to come out of the closet? Might this explain all those suspiciously well-informed WeHo jokes Silverman had made on KISS-FM? “No, it’s not me,” he continued. “But my mother is gay.” Silverman then got back to work on his latest fall revamp: Kath & Kim & Gay Bubbe. [The Advocate]

Lately the internet has been "abuzz" with rumors that NBC wants to dump its golden boy chief programmer Ben Silverman. So of course NBC itself has been equally "abuzz" assuring everyone that it wants no such thing! Are they telling the truth? Oh boy, it's time to do some serious parsing of corporate spin: Among the reasons that NBC has to be pissed at Silverman: he hasn't resurrected the network's ratings; the upcoming season of shows has no clear breakout hit; he's a party boy who stays out all night and doesn't come into the office till 11; and he tapped his old friends for important positions they weren't qualified for, which resulted in NBC doing things like paying his deputy's boyfriend $1.75 million to take his stupid show pitch and go away. At a normal job, this would result in your boss hating you. But NBC chief Jeff Zucker couldn't be happier about how things are going!

♦ NBC's Ben Silverman says he hasn't managed the "unrelenting press attention" as well as he could have, and he's doing better than most people assme, a sentiment echoed by his close pal, Donny Deutsch. [TVDecoder]
♦ Harbinger's Phil Falcone says he has no plans to dump his investment in the New York Times. [Reuters]
♦ MTV is pulling the plug on TRL. [WSJ]
♦ Mark your calendars: Jeanine Pirro's court show debuts next week. [HuffPo]
♦ Current and former staffers at the LA Times are planning to file suit against owner Sam Zell. [LA Observed]
♦ How writers in Hollywood are dealing with the "new comedic landscape." [NYO]
♦ Product placements have earned less airtime on network TV compared with the same period last year, according to Nielsen. [AdAge]
♦ How the financial meltdown will affect Hollywood. [THR]
♦ Jeff Zucker, Mel Karmazin and Steven Rattner weigh in on the state of the media biz. [Portfolio]

· We're not going to lie: Seeing The Soup run our footage of Brooke Hogan drawing a blank on the name "Sarah Palin" on the VMAs red carpet was a real thrill. Enhancing that thrill was knowing E! was temporarily held hostage by our shaky Nikon Coolpix camera work and audio that sounded like it was piped in via two baked bean tins strung together with twine. [The Soup] · After Ellen and Portia's wedding video melted all our troubles away, we were ready for another slice of gay wedding cake. Beam us up a piece, Scottie! [Daily Mail] · Here's a shot of Ben Affleck from the set of Mike Judge's flower-extract-factory comedy (hey—we just work here) Extract, looking as though you could wring a few powerful drops of Jesus Extract from his hair. [Just Jared] · Canadians got the Zack and Miri Enjoy the Pleasures of Reciprocal Oral Sex poster, while all we get is a couple stick figures. They don't even have stick genitalia! [/Film] · Ben Silverman admitted to reporters at the New York Television Festival that the head of HR at his network refers to him as "the Paris Hilton of NBC." He then pulled out a recorder, and spoke: "Memo to self: Ben Silverman's My New BFF. Needs a sidekick and catchphrase. Have assistant see if Jessica Simpson and 'So much much' are available." [broadcastingandcable.com]

Ben Silverman—dubbed by some "the Russell Brand of TV execs" as much for his ids-gone-wild approach to the job as for his untamed nest of rock-star hair and penchant for ultra-skinny jeans—has found himself in recent months the source of much industry deathwatch chatter. By now we're well aware of the criticisms—long absences from the development fold, turning a blind eye to VP-on-showrunner affairs, signing his name and likeness over to a line of Graffix bongs, etc. None of this, however, seems to be of much concern to Ben, who has devised an ingenious way to profit off the one thing NBC has over the other guys: a lack of viewers. He explained the concept to Variety:

• Lindsay Lohan called Sarah Palin a "narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe" on Lohan's MySpace page, citing a conference her church on "converting" gays. "She can suck it." [MySpace, Daily News]

While it's hardly a secret that embattled NBC chief Ben Silverman likes to party, never have his carousing ways received the sort of harsh buzz dealt out this weekend by Nikki Finke, who spent the better part of a blockbuster post detailing how Silverman's antics are about to cost him his job. No, seriously this time! According to a variety of anonymous NBC sources, Silverman is the network's very own Man Who Wasn't There, missing meetings on a regular basis and spending the entire, crucial month of August in Beijing while his colleagues expected him to decamp for a week at most (in all fairness, those Ryan Seacrest remotes weren't going to tape themselves!). However, it seems that the NBC chief's biggest problem is EVP Teri Weinberg, a Silverman protege whose romantic involvement with an NBC showrunner caused upward-failing NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker to step in and terminate that writer's deal:

Is NBC programming whiz Ben Silverman hooked on drugs? And is Jeff Zucker hoping he quits before he has to fire him? That's what Nikki Finke has to say: "Last Thursday was Ben's first day in the office all month after attending the Beijing Olympics and guesting aboard Elisabeth Murdoch's yacht... But a pressing issue has been Silverman's partying ways, especially his excessive off-hours drinking and drug-taking, which has not only been visible to but also prompted complaints from Hollywood's TV community." [Deadline Hollywood]

He speaks! In the midst of fending off the rumors swirling about his job security, NBC head honcho Ben Silverman has taken time out to become a recurring Olympics correspondent for Ryan Seacrest's morning radio show on KIIS-FM. Broadcasting & Cable has the scoop (not to be missed is Silverman's quip about his Chinese tour guide: "Her name is Fun Fun, so you can imagine how much fun-fun Fun Fun is"), but with the help of Molly McAleer, we've assembled some of Silverman's most enthusiastic moments in the video after the jump. Who knew that Silverman and Seacrest were so well-versed about the gay goings-on in West Hollywood? [Broadcasting & Cable]

• Chris Matthews has been missing from Hardball this week because he has pneumonia. [TVNewser]

This Should Help With Those "Party Boy" Rumors: NBC head Ben Silverman, who's never let running a network get in the way of being a party-positive "rock star," will be guesting on the upcoming fifth season of Entourage, says Nikki Finke. What kind of storyline might the HBO brofest have in store for Silverman? We imagine that after sparking up a doob with Vincent at Teddy's, a jealous Johnny Drama will grunt to Turtle, "I want to go hang out with that guy!" Their quest to befriend Silverman will result in a hilarious B-story that ends as all Entourage plotlines do: indifferently, punctuated by loud outbursts from Jeremy Piven. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

What better après-puff-piece aperitif to follow the NY Times's profile of a content-hungry Time Warner than Portfolio's equally attentive servicing of NBC Universal oligarch, Jeff Zucker? Interviewed at his ballroom-sized corner office at 30 Rock, the reporter at first can't resist infantilizing his subject: "Zucker has an appealing, ruddy tint that lends him a cherubic appearance," reads one willies-inducing passage. "When he sits back, his feet actually lift off from the floor a bit, like a boy taking a turn on someone else’s throne." (We'll assume the part that read, "He then soils his diaper, a mess quickly attended to by the youngest and prettiest of his three assistants..." was edited for space.)But let not his gnome-like stature fool you: Zucker's quick rise to supreme power at the G.E.-held media conglomerate was no upwards-failing accident. This former "captain of his high-school tennis team" applies the same ruthless brutality of his deadly slices and backhands to the business of hacking away the fat hindering a rapidly evolving medium:

Outfoxed: Though ticket prices continue to rise and box office records are broken nearly every week, this will be 20th Century Fox's first summer without a $100 million hit since (yikes) 1997. How could anyone have predicted such dire earnings from a blockbuster slate that boasted Space Chimps, an X-Files sequel made a decade too late, and twin bombs from Eddie Murphy and M. Night Shyamalan? As the LAT's Patrick Goldstein notes, Fox toppers Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos have held their position for nine years — will this be the year one (or both) gets the axe? If so, we hear there's a certain toothy mogul who might be looking for work... [LAT]

A while back, those savvy kids over at New York magazine's Vulture posed the provocative question: "Is Ryan on The Office a thinly veiled Ben Silverman?" In a case of life imitating art imitating life, it looks like Silverman may follow in his fictional wunderkind's footsteps: rumors are flying that the NBC co-chairman is about to be fired. Says Page Six:

• Kate Hudson totally finished her first Tour De Lance! Congratulations! [P6]

• New revelations from the legal battle between The Weinstein Co. and NBC over Project Runway: It turns out that Tim Gunn didn't get paid a dime for his participation during the show's first season (he got paid just $2,500 per episode for the second), Harvey Weinstein hates Bravo chief Lauren Zalaznick, and Bravo didn't send Heidi Klum a respectable thank-you gift, even after the show became a major hit. [R&M]