Is NBC Plotting a Fall Schedule With No Time Slot for Ben Silverman?
Kyle Buchanan · 09/02/08 12:15PMWhile 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: