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!

"Ben has done a fantastic job. So far he's exceeded all of our expectations and the financial targets that we've set," said his boss, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker. "We're talking about him being with us for a long time to come."

Words like "fantastic" are as common in corporate statements as words like "the." If you read press releases, you'll notice that every company is "delighted" about everything that happens. Therefore it means nothing. The fact that NBC is "talking about" Silverman being there a long time is not as reassuring as, for example, this alternative: "He will be here a long time."

"The shows that we have for this season are more commercial than any programs that we've had in the past four years," Zucker said.

Silverman's shows may suck, but they get a lot of product placements. Point in his favor.

"From our perspective there are no questions about Ben Silverman's job security. From our perspective he has done everything we've asked and more. We're incredibly happy with the job he's done, and hope that he'll be with us for a long time to come."

Disregard "incredibly," obviously. The inclusion of "from our perspective" and "hope" are bad signs. Consider that Zucker could have said: "There are no questions about Ben Silverman's job security. He has done everything we asked and more. We're happy with the job he's done, and he'll be with us for a long time."

Maybe they'll just dump him when his contract is up. Incredibly fantastic and delightful!

[LAT, Jossip, Mixed Media]

• 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]
• Anna Wintour really, really loved her 30 minutes with LeBron James. Even though it was at a screening. [R&M]
• Vogue's Andre Leon Talley does not appreciate being sprayed with champagne. [P6]
• NBC executive Ben Silverman wisely lets Jeff Zucker win at golf. He's still totally fired. [P6]
• More alleged underage sex victims sued billionaire and Bill Clinton buddy Jeffrey Epstein. [P6]
• Sidney Poitier will steal your wife and then not marry her. And then call her all kinds of un-Sidney-Poitier names! [P6]
• Swimmer Ryan Lochte doesn't have enough gold medals to get laid like Michael Phelps. [P6]
• Spike Lee declared himself done feuding with Clint Eastwood and moved on to Judd Apatow, "whatever that guy is." [Nikki Finke]
• Scarlett Johansson is a total prima donna now that she's Woody Allen's muse. Because that's what's made her a hot commodity. [P6]
• At George "Sulu" Takei's wedding, Chekhov was best man and Uhura was best lady. The husband was Brad Altman, 27 years younger. [ET]
• Amy Winehouse felt she was too ugly to go to her own 25th birthday party, supposedly. [Sun]
• Jennifer Lopez ran a triathlon in 2 hours 23 minutes, compared with 1 hour 30 minutes for Matthew McConaughey. [Us]

• Kate Hudson totally finished her first Tour De Lance! Congratulations! [P6]
• Donna Karan is going to Africa with Calvin Klein and two Vanity Fair editors to try and find inspiration for her new collection, "Urban Zen." Because when you think of Zen, you think of the continent of Africa! [Observer]
• Despite rumors that Matthew Broderick cheated on Sarah Jessica Parker with a 25-year-old youth counselor, everything is totally fine in their relationship. You can tell by how hapy they look in the attached photo. [OK!]
• In jail for soliciting a 14-year-old prostitute, billionaire scuzz Jeff Epstein "has a cell to himself and spends his days at the library e-mailing various models he befriended in New York." I'll bet he does. [P6]
• So, wow, it turns out Amy Winehouse didn't go to the hospital due to legal addiction-busting drugs after all! Go figure. It turns out ecstasy was somehow involved. Also there was a four-hour drinking game and 11 prescription pills. Now her father is trying to figure out which devious soul slipped drugs into her drink. Um, gosh, no idea.
• Ben Silverman, onetime NBC golden boy and close friend to Rupert Murdoch's daughter, may be done for at the network if his fall shows do as poorly as his summer shows. [P6]
• OMG Lauren Conrad cried at home recently once. This means the Hills star is an "out of control... emotional train wreck" who is "wallowing in the misery that she feels her life has become." Someone stop her before she cries again! [Star]
• Though probably drunk, Shia LaBeouf may also have been the victim of a red-light-runner and thus not at fault in his big accident. [People]
• Britney Spears spent $22,000 per month to go from 144 pounds to whatever pretty hot weight she's at now. [Mail]
• The doorman who won $5 million in the lottery has been fired. [Post]

When asked about the reputation he has developed in his short time on the job as an entertainment chief who works closely with marketers, he said that’s due to the new generation of showrunners who are “friends” of advertisers.

That includes Tim Kring and Tina Fey, who head up popular NBC shows Heroes and 30 Rock, respectively, Mr. Silverman said.

“Tina Fey loves American Express. They have been inside 30 Rock, in the show. They have supported her through the Tribeca Film Festival,” he said. “Tim Kring enjoys his relationships with Nissan. He felt Nissan helped empower the growth of that show.”

It's not that anyone would really mind if Tina Fey was "friends" with her sponsors and "loved" them. 30 Rock itself has poked fun at the idea of artistic integrity in the world of TV comedy. And the excellent show has to pay the bills if it is going to survive.

It's just that Silverman statements about Fey and her sponsors are so clearly and aggressively exaggerated. Snarky Tina Fey super excited and pumped to "sacrifice some dignity" to support her show, as one commenter put it? Really? Sure she works with sponsors, but that doesn't mean she is thrilled about it.

Even if that were, somehow, true, Ben Silverman would be far wiser to keep it quiet, running, as it does, sharply counter to Fey's bankable image as something of an arch social commentator, at least as far as comic writers go.

[TV Week via TV Decoder]

Mr. Metcalf said that the family-hour designation should be seen as offering “direction for program development,” not “black-and-white expectations” for the audience.

“It was not to be construed as a return to a strictly defined family hour,” he said, featuring wholesome shows like “Little House on the Prairie,” a hit on NBC in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

Below, a brief reminder of what NBC's not-so-"strictly-defined" family hour now looks like. It was kind of bizarre to slot 30 Rock into a family hour to begin with.

[Times]