Hollywood Execs: They're Worth Every Penny (even if it means buying out their contract)

First off. I'm a Temp. I know some of you think I'm some exec by day who moonlights as a blogger. The pay stubs you see are real. They're are mine. (Yes that's $236.25/week!) I have no access to ad sales reports or revenue projections. I don't even have a designated parking spot. I'm the most expendable person in Hollywood.

But somehow, I (and I'm sure many of you) figured out a year ago the Zucker/Silverman strategy for running NBC was idiotic at best and suicidal at worst when we saw Zucker's comments in Fortune:

..."I can't imagine doing this with somebody else...We're not judging Ben by ratings, and I'd rather be a more profitable No. 2 or 3 than a less profitable No. 1."

Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal President & CEO
Fortune (10/27/08)

Mercifully Silverman is gone and his reign of stupidity is over. They replaced him with Jeff Gaspin who today told TheWrap, "while we think we need to produce economically, the goal is not to manage for margins."

Phew!

It's about time that someone with part of a brain is running that "network."

Even if Gaspin's statements are true, one major problem remains. He still reports into Jeff Zucker. Yes, the same Jeff Zucker from before. The one who would "rather be a more profitable No. 2 or 3 than a less profitable No. 1." And this philosophical conflict will always be decided by the following statement, "I'm your boss. Do as I say." However, I have a solution.

Jeff Zucker, please quit. For the sake of the network and the thousands of people it employs, go away. You're the George W. Bush of the entertainment industry. You took something that was in pretty good shape and drove it right into the ground.

Seriously. Go home. Play golf or canasta. Clean your rain gutters. Do anything. Just make sure it has nothing to do with management or operations of NBC or any of its sister networks. Let Gaspin run the place like a network again. Mr. Immelt, perhaps you should intervene because I doubt he'll pay attention to me.

If this works out, NBC might just recover, flourish and make a bunch of good programs -- preferably scripted.