Comcast will own 51% of NBC Universal, and GE will own 49%. It's simple really: NBC will borrow $9.1 billion and give it to GE, which will pay $5.8 billion to Vivendi for its share of NBC Universal, and Comcast will pay $6.5 billion to GE, which will contribute its share of NBC Universal, valued at $30 billion, to the joint venture with Comcast, which will contribute its networks, valued at $7.25 billion, to NBC Universal. In the end, GE will clear $9.8 billion and still own just under half of NBC Universal. Why is it structured so insanely? So nobody will have to pay any taxes, of course: GE expects to make $8 billion on the deal after taxes, existing debt, and transaction costs. We don't know how much debt and what the transaction costs are, but the very maximum GE could pay in taxes is $1.8 billion, or 20%. The tax rate for someone making $34,000 a year, by way of comparison, is 25%.

GE intends to slowly unload its remaining share over the next seven years. The deal will have to be approved by FCC and the Justice Department, which is expected to take nine to twelve months. Having MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC News ought to come in handy in convincing the Obama administration to sign off, we imagine. And we look forward to the rancid hypocrisy of News Corp.'s Fox News decrying that conflict of interest over the next year.

The deal is being spun as, essentially, a purchase of NBC Universal's cable assets—USA Network, the SciFi Network (which some idiot decided to call SyFy), Bravo, etc.—which conveniently obscures the question of the money pits at the center of NBC Univeral's brand, the NBC television network and station group. Both are in an extended freefall owing to the genius of Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal. But that doesn't matter, because the cable networks make money, and Comcast owns the cable pipes, so there's got to be a way to leverage that into even more money, right? In a just-ended executive conference call with reporters on the transaction, the word "synergy" came up a lot, unironically, which doesn't bode well. But what do we know?

Zucker, as we predicted, is going to keep his job, at least for now, according to a little birdie (also named Jeff Zucker!) who talked to the New York Times. His new contract will keep him on through regulatory approval of the deal and "include language promising that his role as chief executive will continue in the new joint venture," the Times says. But Zucker shouldn't rest too easy. To read the Times' play-by-play of how the deal went down, it seems like Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and GE CEO Jeff Immelt don't really trust him: Zucker wasn't told of the early negotiations, and when Immelt first met with Comcast co-founder Ralph Roberts to talk it over at a media conference, he took care to physically avoid Zucker so as not to raise his suspicions. It was a smart move:

For nearly six months, only a small cadre of G.E. and Comcast executives knew about the deal — nobody at NBC was ever told — and it had not leaked. On Sept. 30, several hours after the talks were disclosed to a tiny group of executives at NBC, the blockbuster talks appeared on TheWrap.com, a Hollywood news site.

"I'm telling you to be prepared for this to leak," Mr. Sherin had told Mr. Angelakis earlier that day.

• After all the build-up, the actual film seems rather beside the point. But New Moon is here and looking to do the box office what vampires do to their victims, except not leaving them dead, but rather filled up with money. The second installment of the Twilight series has already become the all time online ticket sales champion. In it's opening weekend it is expected to rake in in the range of $85 million domestic, although there is some buzz that it could, just possibly, if we can dare to dream, break the magic $100 million opening weekend figure. [Hollywood Reporter]

• And if you are worried that what with there only being a couple Harry Potter movies left and Twilight being half over, that we might soon be running out of fantasy mega-cycles at our multiplexes, set your mind at ease, help is on the way. Lorenzo di Bonaventura yesterday nailed the rights to produce a film adaptation of the six chapter literary fantasy series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Bonaventura, Variety notes, presided over the launch of the Potter series which has currently grossed $5.38 billion worldwide while he was head of production at Warner Brothers. [Variety]

• Oscar's got a new director. The fantastically named Hamish Hamilton, veteran of directing live concert events will take the Academy's baton under producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman. [Variety]

• The Academy however, majorly dissed its once darling Michael Moore. His latest installment of the Michael Moore Yells at The Rich cycle Capitalism, A Love Story, failed to make the short list of 15 films up for the Best Documentary prize. The list which included favorites Valentino: The Last Emperor, The Cove and Every Little Step, will be winnowed down to five nominees in February. [The Wrap]

• Forbes has done the math on the most-overpaid stars in Hollywood, coming up with a showbiz equivalent of a PE ratio, calculating how much their movies gross for every dollar they are paid. Topping the list: Will Ferrell whose films earn a mere $3.29 for every dollar he has paid. [Forbes]

• The New York Times reports on how early very obscure Oscar buzz for Jeff Bridges' performance as a country singer in Crazy Heart transformed a movie that its distributor had deemed unreleasable into a major awards contender. [NY Times]

• Asked in an interview with CNBC's Erin Burnett about the pending sale of NBC/Universal to Comcast, CEO Jeff Zucker was tight lipped, saying "I'm incredibly interested to see what will happen...Time will tell." Asked about his decision to upend NBC's schedule with the Jay Leno Experiment, Zucker deflected the question, focusing on the show's spin, saying he thought it was unfortunate that the move had been portrayed as part of a cost-cutting strategy and that its just about making great shows. His team is focused on doing "whatever it takes to put on the best television," he said, which is something less than saying either "We are committed to giving Jay as long as he needs to find an audience" or, on the other hand, "What the hell have we done!?" [Hollywood Reporter]

On its Media Decoder blog, the NY Times raised the curtain on the Comcast war room, revealing the man pulling the levers is none other than mogul-on-the-loose Chernin himself. And now the media world is wondering, is Chernin about to rule Hollywood once more — and this time for keeps?

For Hollywood's reporting savants this is a day that will live in infamy. To learn after months of reporting on the pending sale, they missed this huge element of the wheeling-deadling. There will be no Toldjas on this shift of the tectonic plates.

Certainly, they can be excused for missing it. It seems, according to the NYT reporter that Comcast more or less, kept Chernin locked away under the tightest scrutiny, secreting him into the takeover bunker in phony moustache under the cover of darkness, to advise a select group of cable titans who would know the shadowy adviser only as "Our Friend From The Coast." Amazingly, Comcast was able to even keep the news from Machievelli's foremost disciple in showbiz, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, the man whose job would be most threatened if Chernin's quiet advisory role were to, as they say, become operational after a merger.

So if Zucker didn't know, you can't really blame Nikki Finke for not knowing. But when you make your name pathologically claiming to have known everything about everything that is happening in Hollywood before the players themselves knew it, to have not known about the biggest thing happening currently in entertainment must be regarded as a wee bit of a setback. (The Deadline blog has been notably, uncharacteristically quiet on the subject thus far.)

But even for the non-Toldja oriented press corps, this revelation kinda demonstrates how little our reporting teams often know about what's really happening in the business beyond what's spoon-fed them by various interests. The major outlets have been covering this story for months, none revealing any hint that the Big C had a finger in this pie.

Some other questions, and possible answers, raised by the speculation frenzy:

• The piece claims Jeff Zucker has been assured he would keep his job under a Comcast regime, even furnishing him with the specifics of what his reporting structure would be? Can we believe that? Does he believe that? How is that even possible?
• David Poland offers that this news supplies the missing link to Comcast's world-domination scheme, namely putting someone who understands what to do with content into the mix. By his calculations, this buyout, with Chernin aboard, would make the new company second only to NewsCorp in global integrated reach.
• And what about Vivendi? Don't they still have to figure out what to do with their stake before any of this can move forward? Do our French friends count for nothing?
• With all our blustering about Goldman Sachs and Wall St. greed in the face of economic collapse, where is the outrage for Hollywood salaries run amok in the face of the Death of Media? Especially salaries for former Studio Chiefs. According to the NYT piece, Chernin's goodbye package, in exchange for not running Fox included, "movie and television production deals with 20th Century Fox, and perks such as the use of a private jet and a car and driver. In 2008, he earned a $34 million pay package, according to a regulatory filing." AIG, you're not dreaming big enough!

Zucker, the bullet-headed upward-failer who's managed to infuriate and exasperate his many critics into sputtering fits of rage simply by never, ever getting fired despite an incontrovertible record of deserving to get fired, will stay under any new ownership, according to "three people with knowledge of the situation." We're confident that those three people are Zucker, his wife, and his cousin, because expert care and feeding of the press is one way Zucker has managed to never, ever get fired.

To celebrate the news of his continued survival, here's a handy list of Zucker's brushes with death (real and metaphorical), and how he survived them all, unfairly (except for the brushes with real death, which we're glad he survived).

Harvard Law School
Zucker gained fame as the youngest executive producer of the Today Show ever—he took the helm at age 26 in 1992. How'd he land that gig? By failing to get into Harvard Law School. After Harvard rejected him, he took a job as a researcher at NBC Sports, met Katie Couric, and was running Today six years later.

NBC Nightly News
Zucker was undeniably successful at Today, if by "successful" you mean "good at turning it into a show where bands played rock music outside and you could look at Katie Couric's gams." He was so good at it, in fact, that in 1993 NBC News also put him in charge of the NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw, a job he excelled at for the precisely five weeks it took him to fail at it and go back to just producing Today. Tom Brokaw called him "Doogie."

Now With Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric
Now was Zucker's brainchild—an hour-long primetime newsmagazine in the vein of 60 Minutes, 20/20, and Dateline NBC, which already existed on NBC in 1993, when Zucker launched Now. It lasted one year, because it sucked. Dateline is still around.

Good Morning Miami
After getting promoted to president of NBC Entertainment in 2000, Zucker was moved out to Hollywood with the explicit job of a) keeping Friends on the air for as long as he could and b) coming up with a successor sitcom for Thursday nights after it did, inevitably, go off the air. Zucker kept Friends going until the 2003-04 season, but his first bid for a successor was Good Morning Miami, a show about a nebbishy young morning-show executive producer in Miami—Zucker's hometown. Good thing Mark Feuerstein, who played the main character, had a full head of hair. Otherwise the show could have been misinterpreted as egomaniacal self-glorification. It sucked and was canceled.

Coupling
With the Friends franchise fast disappearing, Zucker put his faith in an exciting young upstart producer named Ben Silverman to keep NBC on top Thurday nights. In 2003, Silverman adapted the British hit Coupling for American audiences. It was going to be awesome, Zucker told television critics. It lasted one month, because it sucked, and Zucker later admitted to those self-same television critics that he "knew from the first taping it was in trouble." Stephen Moffat, the creator of the British version, had this to say when asked why Coupling sucked: "I can answer it with three letters: N, B, C.... The network fucked it up because they intervened endlessly. If you really want a job to work, don't get Jeff Zucker's team to come help you with it because they're not funny. All right? There you go."

Joey
By 2004, Zucker was promoted to running the NBC Television Group, and brought in Kevin Reilly to shepherd primetime on the network, but not before deciding that Joey was a really great idea for keeping that Friends magic going. It was not.

Ben Silverman
Zucker fired Reilly in 2007, and hired Ben Silverman, the genius behind Coupling. Silverman lasted two years of clubbing and combating rumors that he does drugs all the time and can't make morning meetings because he's hung over before getting fired a few months ago.

Losing $1 billion
The collective impact of the aforementioned decisions is that when Zucker took the reins at NBC, it was the number one network among 18-to-49-year-olds and home—or inheritor—of brands like Seinfeld, Cheers, and Friends. By 2005, it was dead last. In the 2004-05 season, NBC raked in an astonishing $1 billion less in ad revenue than the season prior.

Land of the Lost et. al.
Under Zucker's ultimate leadership, Universal Pictures is in the midst of a prolonged box-office slump marked by expensive non-starters like Land of the Lost (cost $100 million, made $62 million worldwide), Funny People (cost $75 million, made $60 million), State of Play, Frost/Nixon, etc. Zucker ordered Universal honcho Ron Meyer to shake up the executive ranks last month, but the studio has a lot of expensive movies still in the pipeline.

Lying to Nikki Finke
Perhaps worst of all, Zucker lied to Nikki Finke. When she heard rumors last summer that Silverman was on his way out at NBC, Zucker assured her through a spokesperson that nothing could be further from the truth: "Ben is here to stay for the foreseeable future. No changes afoot." And we all know that lying to Nikki Finke gives you cancer.

Cancer
Which is nothing to Jeff Zucker! He's survived two bouts of colon cancer. The man will not be moved.

The story's murky: Citing two sources, The Wrap reported that a deal to purchase NBC Universal—which owns Universal Studios, the USA Network, Bravo, MSNBC, NBC, and a bunch of other stuff—from General Electric "had already been completed at a purchase price of $35 billion." GE has been rumored to be interested in selling NBC for ages, and Vivendi's reported intent to exercise its option to sell its 20 percent stake in the company this year could be a motivating factor for getting a deal done. Comcast, which owns cable and internet pipes but not much of the stuff that goes through them, has always wanted to own a big content company, and made a failed pass at Disney five years ago. GE makes engines and microwaves, so it never made much sense for them to own a network and studio.

But Comcast has attempted to knock the story down, saying "the report that Comcast has a deal to acquire NBC Universal is inaccurate." And while GE has officially remained silent, CNBC—which Nikki Finke suspects is acting as a mouthpiece for its corporate parent—is pouring cold water on the report as well. But NBC Universal's bullet-headed, upward-failing chief Jeff Zucker sent out a compay-wide e-mail today that took pains not to shoot the story down, saying, helpfully, "there are a number of possible things that could happen." The New York Times says that, Comcast's carefully calibrated denial notwithstanding, it is just one of many companies looking at buying Vivendi's stake in NBC Universal, but not the whole company. Billions of dollars are at stake, so you can be fairly confident that everybody is lying.

But what happens if Comcast does buy the whole hog outright? Here are a couple of potential ramifications:

Tina Fey Is Screwed:
The primary comic engine of 30 Rock is the notion of a television network being run by a cultish global microwave conglomerate. Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, is a mild-mannered squash champion who lives in Philadelphia. They could get a good story arc out of the sale, but in the end, what's so funny about a show-runner clashing with cable executive? We suppose they could just pretend it didn't happen, but it's been funny because it's been true!

Bill O'Reilly is Screwed:
Ruh-roh. The hysterical crusade against GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt for personally helping Iran build a nuclear warhead sort of lacks urgency when it's not a proxy war against Keith Olbermann and MSNBC. If GE fully divests and Comcast takes over, O'Reilly loses his favorite target to lie about. Maybe Comcast gives free cable to ACORN, or something?

Jeff Zucker is Probably Not Screwed Because He Always Gets Away With It
Jeff Zucker, who personally oversaw the dismantling of one of the greatest television brands in history from the home of Seinfeld and Friends to the home of the Jay Leno Comedy Hour, should have been fired, repeatedly, years ago. But he somehow persists, and even though we'd like to speculate that Comcast's new management would seek a shake-up in order to more closely integrate NBC Universal's content into Comcast's delivery system, we won't because the guy always wins.

Other than that, NBC Universal would have to get used to having an interested, involved corporate parent that thinks it knows something about the entertainment business. Its status as the red-headed stepchild at GE afforded it some independence—GE didn't care much as long as NBC made the numbers. Comcast, on the other hand, is in the business of delivering entertainment, and probably has some ideas on how to make it. It would also of course seek to sell Universal Studio's film library via its On Demand service, and would likely try to find a way to sell all of NBC Universal's content through its internet service.

One significant area where the two companies overlap is ad sales: Right now if you're a Comcast subscriber watching USA Network, you're seeing a mix of ads sold by NBC Universal and Comcast. If a deal is completed, Comcast would in effect own all the cable ad inventory on its cable properties. And in local markets, Comcast now competes with NBC's owned-and-operated stations—they want the local car wash to buy Comcast's cable spots, not the NBC station's local news spots. That competition would go away.

Still, Comcast's shareholders aren't reacting well to speculation about the deal: It's stock is down 6% right now. And the Wall Street Journal's Martin Peers spells out why:

But there's little evidence that owning both content and distribution brings strategic value. Time Warner, in fact, only this year split its cable systems from its vast content operations. In Comcast's case, it's tough to see that having more MGM movies on demand has helped Comcast slow the inroads that phone companies have been making into its video business. And there are surely cheaper ways to prevent exclusive deals by rivals than to spend billions on an equity stake.

• In the first big pick-up of the Toronto Film Festival, The Weinstein Company came out on top after an "all night negotiating session" over the rights to designer Tom Ford's directorial debut A Single Man. For the newly contractually-joined pair, it was all a beautiful dream. Ford told Variety "Harvey and I have talked about a collaboration for years, in fact, since our first meeting more than 10 years ago." [Variety]

• Weinstein denied rumors, however, that the release of the Rob Marshall musical Nine is being pushed off until next year, a move which would have knocked it out of the Oscar race. The scuttlebutt started when when Weinstein pushed back the release of The Road, landing it on the same date as Nine had been booked to bow. The change would have shaken up an already wide-open Oscar race but Weinstein declared yesterday that we can handle two releases on one day just fine, thank you very much. [Hitfix]

• At Goldman Sachs' Communicopia in New York, Rupert Murdoch thrilled attendees with his plan to save big media by charging for NewsCorp content, starting with the Wall St. Journal Blackberry edition. Jeff Zucker for his part declared NBC's Jay Leno was blazing a trail to the future with his 10 PM show. Asked about a possible Vivendi deal to buy NBC from GE, Zucker was coy saying the company has been "a great partner." [Variety]

• If you worried that we were running low on ideas after Battleship—the A-Team film is moving forward. Jessica Biel and Sharlto Copley are in talks to star. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Red hot quirky comic Zack Galifianakis is in talks to star in the new film by writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. The movie "It's Kind of a Funny Story" will also star Emma Roberts and is described as a "coming of age dramedy.' [Hollywood Reporter]

The attack included the usual snipes about Fox News' super superior ratings, like how the network's 9am morning show beat MSNBC's 8pm evening show. How embarrassing, indeed, O'Reilly! He also made sure his viewers feel personally invested, for MSNBC thinks they're all "paranoid" and "racist."

"Pinhead," insists O'Reilly, doesn't begin to describe NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker and his crew. We're sure O'Reilly's longtime foe, Keith Olbermann, feels a bit left out after not even getting a mention.

Of particular interest was how Leno, unwilling to go quietly off to Vegas or Branson to peddle corny jokes to the olds, grew disenchanted over time with the network's decision to appoint O'Brien as his successor in 2004, eventually forcing NBC head Jeff Zucker into offering him the nightly 10pm slot over fears that he might jump to ABC or FOX.

"Five years ago," Leno continued, "I think they thought we wouldn't still be on top. Back then, I said, ‘Whatever you want.' I don't have an agent. I don't have a manager. If the girl doesn't want to sleep with you, that's O.K. I'm not one of those guys who says, ‘Why don't you want to sleep with me?' I say, ‘O.K., great - let's be friends.' You want to make a change? That's great - we'll make a change."

As he became increasingly disgruntled, Leno began entertaining offers from other networks. Although viewership on network TV is shrinking and advertising is migrating to cable and (to a lesser degree) to the Web, topical shows with comedy and celebrity guests are inexpensive to produce and maintain a consistent appeal. Leno is a name brand - he could easily move to ABC or Fox and become O'Brien's competition, which is what NBC feared. "It became clear that Jay wanted to continue telling jokes on television at 11:30," Zucker said. To entice him to stay at NBC, Zucker offered Leno a daytime show, a cable show, a series of specials. When Leno turned all those down, Zucker proposed a half-hour show, five nights a week at 8 p.m. The idea was that Leno would just do his monologue, riffing off the events of the day. "Eight p.m. doesn't work," Leno explained to me. "I never assume anyone is watching because I'm good-looking. You're selling a product. In my particular instance, the product, hopefully, is jokes. With ‘The Tonight Show,' you have the jokes plus Angelina Jolie, and that's a little more enticement. A half-hour monologue every night doesn't seem like enough enticement."

Zucker made his final plea: an hourlong show at 10 p.m., five nights a week. To Zucker's surprise, Leno agreed. "I have believed, for a long time, that there should be a daily prime-time program with a topical format," Zucker told me. "I've never said this publicly before, but I approached Oprah Winfrey about her doing a daily hourlong show in prime time. She turned me down, but I rekindled the idea with Jay. The advantage of a show like that is it's easy to join, DVR-proof due to its topicality and different. Too much on television is the same show recycled. This will be a show that can provide an answer for the changing times we live in."

And then this paragraph near the end of the piece where O'Brien reflects back on the early struggles of his Late Night show is just fucking funny.

Critics attacked him (Tom Shales suggested in The Washington Post that "the host resume his previous identity, Conan O'Blivion"), and the NBC executives were anxious to replace him with Greg Kinnear, who was on the network at 1:30 a.m. "One executive," O'Brien recalled, "particularly despised Andy [Richter]. He told me I'd never succeed until I ‘got rid of that big fat dildo.' That was the tone of the conversations between us and the network."

Yes Andy Richter is a big fat dildo, and we can't wait to see him back on a show with Conan.

Heeere's...Conan!!! [New York Times]

It's brutal. Carter wrote around the quotes and got exactly what he wanted: to write a Riot-Act level piece capable of inciting the pitchfork-wielding masses of Hollywood suits, gossips, and former NBC employees who want a Blackberry lodged through Silverman and Jeff Zucker's skulls (and put on display prominently at the NBC-Universal commissary). The title alone ("NBC Hired a Hit Maker. It's Still Waiting.") is fairly cruel. But then again, so was what he managed to get. For the first time, we're seeing less signs of Silverman hanging himself out to dry, and what might be the first instances of a somewhat apologetic-sounding Jeff Zucker beginning to try and swim to shore on Ben. Yes, Zucker is now trying to save his own ass:

Jeff Zucker, Mr. Silverman's boss and the chief executive of NBC Universal, says he continues to value Mr. Silverman's work. "Ben has a skill set that is incredibly appropriate for these times," he said. "If we weren't supportive of Ben, he wouldn't be here."

Still, the fact that there has been no formal deal announced to renew Mr. Silverman's contract will probably set off speculation among Mr. Silverman's critics that Mr. Zucker does not want to make a public endorsement of him.

As for his personal life, Mr. Silverman said he had taken steps to temper his social profile, which made him a frequent target in the Hollywood blogosphere. (He famously held a party populated by models in bikinisand white tigers in cages.) "I am more conscious of how I'm being presented," he said.

The off-hand remarks:

He was quoted dismissing two network competitors as "D-girls" - or low-level development executives. "I should never have called them that," Mr. Silverman said.

Silverman's goal posts:

...In its current position, still last among the major networks, NBC needs up, not flat; it also had the Super Bowl this season and it won't next year. To pick up [the] slack, it will require something (or several somethings) shiny and successful out of Mr. Silverman's shop.

...as well as his removal from the day-to-day of developing and green-lighting shows, the programming failures (though there is some praise reserved for his success with The Biggest Loser and The Office, both of which arrived via him, before he got to NBC). Oh, and then there's this gem, which makes Silverman sound like he showed up to work on the first day in boardshorts, ready to rock the lot with a set of aged cedar bongos under his arms:

"What I didn't realize is, it's really hard to have a vision running a network," Mr. Silverman said. "You can have an agenda. But it's almost impossible to have a vision because of the scale of the business and the entropy that already exists."

What the hell were Zucker and Silverman thinking giving anything - quotes, on the record or off - to Carter in the first place? How did they not know he was gonna hang them out to dry? If anything, this is throwing a propane tank on the coals: the piece in it of itself represents a massive fuckup on both of their parts, and Silverman - probably sitting at home right now, face in a Pyrex - will inevitably go deeper into hiding from being the programming rockstar he once saw himself as, and further into the dark, cavernous corridors of his advertisers' offices to do the "business stuff" he imaginably despises. It doesn't help that they included a chart (pictured below) to show how terrible of a job Silverman's doing. Growing up: bummer, man.

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NBC Universal—which runs, among other things, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Universal Studios, and a bunch of theme parks—pulled in a profit of $391 million in the first quarter of 2009, versus $712 million in the first quarter of the previous year.

It's yet another colossal failure in Zucker's cap: He single-handedly engineered the demise of NBC from first place to fourth; he spent insane amounts of money on the Olympics in Athens and Beijing, which netted great ratings but not enough ad revenue to keep profits growing; he hired a club-kid to run NBC; and he acknowledged defeat last month. But he keeps on keeping his job, maybe because he dazzles and confuses his General Electric boss Jeffrey Immelt with reflections from his exceedingly bald head.

NBC Universal blames the profit drop squarely on the broadcast television unit, which lets it mask poor executive decisions behind the general advertising recession. Yes, local TV advertising is down because nobody is buying cars. But NBC also says that the Super Bowl was a drag on profits:

While NBC aired Super Bowl XLIII to great ratings success, there were significant production costs to air the big game, combined with rights fees paid to the NFL. Those expenses added up to $45 million in the quarter.

"Ratings success" understates it: Super Bowl 43 was the most-watched Super Bowl game in history, and the second-most watched program in the history of television. That's right: NBC Universal is explaining it's poor performance last quarter by saying that it got stuck with broadcasting the No. 2 television broadcast since the medium was invented. Tough luck guys!

Also dragging down profits were expenses relating to the Beijing Olympics, another huge ratings success that, in the normal course of business, ought to mean more money, not less. DVD sales were also down significantly.

On the upside, NBC Universal's cable networks were up 19%, which explains why executives were describing boring old USA this week as the company's "single biggest asset."

Page Six "has learned" — such credible language from a gossip sheet — that such pressure was applied. But CNBC disputes any political overtones to the event, which it said was a "to thank CNBC for a job well done." Uh, really? A job well done?

In any case, someone at NBC clearly has an axe to grind. Six's source insists GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker (pictured) want the network in the tank, for the socialist in chief:

There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much... The whole meeting was really kind of creepy.

This account is definitely disconcerting, if only because there are far better reasons to call CNBC on the carpet: failing to warn investors about the pending financial meltdown, actively mocking experts with enough foresight to do so, swallowing so many CEO lies whole, and just generally being a part of the dysfunctional, broken Wall Street system rather than a check on it.

Rick Santelli's cheap Fox News schtick is the least of the network's many problems.

[Page Six]

This morning, Zucker stuck up for Cramer, dismissing Stewart's critique as scapegoating and saying that "just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn't make it so."

Oh no he didn't! Daumann refused to let the insult stand, taking the stage to defend Stewart: "Jon Stewart is a great person and he's very smart and has a connection with the zeitgeist which makes him successful. It got so much attention because Jon Stewart was one of the few people on air that spoke to what people are thinking out there. He did a great job and we're proud to have to have him as part of our family."

Please, please let them settle this with fists. Zucker is rumored to keep a roll of quarters on hand at all times in case he needs to throw down.

TV Newser reports that MSNBC producers were told not to talk about Cramer appearance on the Daily Show last night.

The contretemps has been cable wallpaper all week; the NBC bosses' decision to tamp down and enter damage control mode with a sure-to-leak order dictating editorial coverage indicates that they are taking the PR downside of this debacle seriously after foolishly offering up Cramer to Stewart earlier this week. The gag order surely came from NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker, pictured with Cramer.

Calls to several CNBCers this morning indicated that Cramer has "the full backing" of CNBC and NBC Universal execs, and that his role at CNBC is safe. But some are hopeful that the backlash against Cramer will serve as a wake-up call to CNBC president Mark Hoffman, who pushed the eight-screaming-heads-in-a-box gimmickry that seized the network when he took over in 2005. And while it's unlikely that CNBC would dump Cramer over a chat-show appearance, the more he becomes both the public face of the network and the target of populist outrage, the grimmer CNBC's fortunes become as it heads into a very down year.

Meanwhile, Former CNBC reporter Mike Hegedus writes on his Huffington Post blog: "If you invest your money based solely on what Jim Cramer tells you on television you deserve to lose it."

Hegedus spent a decade at CNBC; he just left in January. Another, current CNBC reporter expressed precisely the same sentiment to me in an interview today: That people looking for free stock tips on TV get what they pay for.

SO STOP LISTENING TO THE THINGS THEY SAY, PLEASE.

• Despite what Dr. Phil was told, someone's shopping a tape of Octo-Mom giving birth, shot by one of Nadya Suleman's close friends. [TMZ]
• Octo-Mom to Dr. Phil on having her last batch of eight kids: "I wasn't thinking rationally. In retrospect, would I have done that again? I don't know." Having eight more kids while you're still alone and on food stamps with the first six? Ya, that's a tough one. [Us]
• Neel Shah reveals that yoga saved former hooker Ashley Dupre's life. In so doing, he does not once use the phrase "downward dog." Gawker's little intern is all grown up! [P6]
  
• Jeff Zucker likes to watch Jimmy Fallon play with his Wii. [Gatecrasher]
  
• The New York Times crossword editor used "WSJ" as the answer to the clue "Where to read about the [NYSE]." As punishment, he must somehow fit the answer "DealBook by Andrew Ross Sorkin" into one of his future puzzles.
• It's possible Chris Brown will win up to two "Kids' Choice" awards on Nickelodeon. OK, so someone finally devised a scenario that makes us favor uninformed voters and corrupt election officials. It doesn't mean we're over the Bush v. Gore ruling. [People]
  
• If everyone could stop arguing over which ladyfriend is or is not ultimately responsible for the apparently bloody fight between Chris Brown and Rihanna, that would be great. There's exactly one person responsible for Chris Brown's actions. [OK!]
• George Clooney was reportedly so drunk in St. Louis recently he could barely stumble to his hotel. Laugh at him now, and then the next time you're piss drunk realize you're just as bad, except also half as handsome. [Gatecrasher]

Though Zucker has gotten some grudging credit for installing Leno as the network's 10pm player (all the better to distract you from that billion dollars of profit he's lost over the last three years!), Leno tells the NY Times that Zucker offered him some ridiculous, borderline-crazy ideas first:

He proposed a lot, starting with a half-hour show at 8 p.m. “That seemed way wrong,” Mr. Leno said.

Mr. Zucker then offered a prime-time slot every Sunday night. “Once a week is death,” Mr. Leno said.

So Mr. Zucker turned to another NBC Universal property, the USA cable network. Mr. Leno could have 11 p.m. (even though that would have cut into Mr. O’Brien’s “Tonight Show”). “That sort of seemed like living in the basement of your own house,” Mr. Leno said. “I’m still old enough to think network is the place.”

We're hardly Leno fans, but even we can't take pleasure in Zucker's offer of a much-worse, lower-rated talk show on USA, of all things. This man is somehow running NBC Universal! Did he really think that the workaholic Leno would eschew a huge payday and high-profile slot from rival suitor ABC so that he could follow lead-ins from Monk and Dr. Steve-O on basic cable? And that it would be a good idea to set up such a show to compete directly against NBC's The Tonight Show? Suddenly, the decision to greenlight Rosie Live! is making a whole lot more sense...

• Leno Discusses His Prime-Time Plans [NY Times]

Though Fey fired herself as Sarah Palin after the Republican ticket lost the election, the will of the people (and the network's biggest female star) is no match for the whims of tax credit-wielding lawmakers! According to New York, Fey was forced to reheat the impression for the state's Assembly Speaker and his Democratic caucus:

NBC boss Jeff Zucker asked her to make the appearance, according to Fey’s manager, David Miner. “He doesn’t ask every day for something,” Miner says. The lawmakers voted for legislation this year expanding tax credits for New York film and television productions, like 30 Rock. Miner says Fey was happy to be there, but one lawmaker in attendance isn’t convinced. “She seemed incredibly uncomfortable,” he said. “It was like she didn’t know what she was doing there. Someone said, ‘Do a Sarah Palin!’ and she did a Sarah Palin.” Fey posed for pictures before racing out to finish a script for a 30 Rock episode shooting the next day.

Will the country ever stop forcing an uncomfortable Fey (they said it, not us!) to sing for her supper when the woman runs a sitcom that demands her attendance? Or will Zucker continue to issue loaded threats to Fey, musing, "You don't have to do Palin for my godson's bar mitzvah, but what do you think about Kevin Eubanks getting a 9:30 Leno pre-show, hmm?"

• Zucker Calls, Fey Says ‘You Betcha’ [New York]

Jeff Zucker has canned pretty much everyone responsible for finding new NBC shows — except Silverman — and given nearly a quarter of the primetime schedule — i.e. what Silverman's supposed to fill — to Jay Leno by moving him to 10 p.m. As for Silverman's job performance since joining the network in 2007, NBC's ratings are still in the toilet, every one of the shows that Stiller has championed has either been cancelled (Knight Rider, Kath & Kim) or nonexistent (Without Breasts There Is No Paradise).

But never worry for hard-partying Ben: an "NBC source" tells the Post "there are many reasons why Silverman's contract, which expires in June, will likely be extended." Among those reasons: still blaming the year-old writer's strike and now the latest bloodletting itself. Silverman's own handpicked deputy was included on that list: Teri Weinberg, an executive he brought with him from his old production company and tasked with doing his job while he went skiing and chatted with Ryan Seacrest from the Olympics.

"Jeff wants to give Ben a chance to work with his own team in a normalized environment," said an NBC source.

An NBC source said Zucker thinks Silverman is "the best dealmaker in town," and that he "brings the show and the business together better than anybody."

Who could this source be? Silverman has a penchant for corporate nonsense-speak — "I think I am the audience, you know what I mean? I viscerally respond. I am conceptual and a dealmaker,” he once told me — and he's suspected as the one who griped to the Post's Page Six that NBC's troubles were all the fault of one of his now-fired subordinates.

But maybe we're jumping to conclusions. Why wouldn't NBC be scrambling to keep this suave operator around?

[via Deadline Hollywood Daily]

An old-fashioned, TV honcho dick-measuring contest! Talking today at the same New York media conference where Zucker dropped jaws by announcing his plan to scale back on programming hours, Moonves temporarily blinded the audience with a smile, before pledging that it wouldn't be long before David Caruso would be scraping Leno off the bottom of his Italian loafers. THR reports:

"I'm here to tell you the model ain't broke," Moonves told the UBS conference late Wednesday morning. "You can still make a lot of money in network television. We like 10 o'clock shows."

"For NBC, probably a very good move," Moonves said. "For us, it wouldn't be a good move. We are winning four of five nights at 10 p.m." [...]

"I would bet anyone who would like to bet that 'CSI: Miami' will beat Jay by a lot," Moonves said. "Remember: by a lot."

Probably true, but that doesn't make it any less satisfying to hear—almost as satisfying as the image it conjures of a beet-red Zucker submitting to a stress-reducing neck massage from Ben "Magic Fingers" Silverman, who comfortingly whispers, "Shhhhh...Just focus on Jay's chin...We're golden, J.Z., golden..." into his ear.

• Moonves on NBC's Leno move: 10 p.m. 'ain't broke' [THR]

(With a half-hour of local news between the two as the delicious, late night sandwich filling.) While he never said the words "Jay Leno can suck my pink, Irish ass" directly, he did point to the worrisome 20 degree temperature-increase in NYC that accompanied the news. The subtext was clear: Conan had been following our Pop Culture Doomsday coverage closely, and was warning his viewers to find their quickest route into orbit before the planet erupts into flames the second Leno delivers his first joke about Bill Clinton getting handsy with Michelle Obama at the Press Corps dinner in primetime. [Late Show]