NBC blows it again!

Allow me first to set the scene…Greta was asleep, Christine and I were sitting on the couch a good two-and-a-half hours into NBC’s coverage of the Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic Games. We were tired, bleary-eyed from laughing, crying, and realizing that tomorrow morning we would have to emerge from our Olympic cocoon and face real life.

And then, just as Michael Buble (wow, is everyone Canadian?) and hundreds of hot, dancing Mountie chicks were wrapping up a rousing version of “O, Canada”, Bob Costas informed us that the network was now cutting away from their coverage — yes, you heard me, cutting away from their fake-live coverage! — to air a sneak preview episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s cheesy-ass new reality show, “The Marriage Ref”. What the hell? Say it ain’t so, Bob!

But, sadly, it was so…and like millions of American television viewers, we did not set our Tivo for NBC’s impromtu hour-long intermission, so, we missed the entire last hour of the Closing Ceremonies. Thanks, NBC!

What really pisses me off is that I checked the Tivo on Saturday night and there was no mention of a one-hour break in the Closing Ceremonies coverage at all. Which means that NBC, in their never-ending quest for total ineptitude decided to make the old switcheroo at the last minute and force feed their loyal Olympic viewers a meal of straight-up dog shit. Sorry, but that’s how it felt. After sixteen days of watching nothing but the networks of NBC, having them pull a stunt like that was like a freaking slap in the face…

And the worst thing was that our Tivo cut-off midway through “The Marriage Ref”…actually, that’s probably a good thing because that show looks super lame. But I’m sorry, NBC, you just don’t cut off something like the Closing Ceremonies at the Olympics to air a reality show. It’s disrespectful to your viewers, to Canada and hell, to the freaking Olympics in general. Seriously, I wanna write a letter to the IOC and get the games switched to another network next time…yikes…

On their website last night, the AP called NBC’s decision to cut off the Closing Ceremonies “spectacularly wrong-headed” and continued on to say that: “those enjoying the festivities were told to come back in an hour — at 11:30 p.m. on a night before work or school — for the conclusion. Incredible that NBC would wrap a show it has high hopes for, and one of its biggest stars, in ill will.”

We could not agree more. Suck it, NBC…

NBC’s “Biggest Loser” hits the road…

OK, normally, I am not the kind of person to gloat when bad things happen to jerky people (even if they totally deserve it!) but when I heard that NBC Universal’s much-maligned entertainment co-chairman, Ben Silverman was fired today, I gotta admit, I kinda cheered!

That’s right, amigos, the man who brought you such immortal classics as “My Own Worst Enemy”, “Kings”, “Crusoe”, “Kath & Kim”, the crazy-expensive (not to mention totally unnecessary!) remakes of “Bionic Woman” and “Knight Rider”, and Survival Sunday cheesefests like “Meteor” and “The Storm”, has finally been shown the door. Hooray!

In his defense, Silverman was a well-regarded producer of such hit shows as “Ugly Betty”, “The Office”, and “30 Days” before taking the reigns at NBC, so, when the network brass hired him to lead NBC out of the crapper in 2007, he seemed like an inspired pick.

But it was soon clear to everyone involved that Silverman was not the “rock star executive” he promised to be. Not only were many of his big ideas just plain lame — hello, “Rosie Live!” anyone? — but by making crass product placement a way of life at the network, greenlighting expensive duds left and right, and calling writers “the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school” during the dark days of the WGA strike, Silverman really was his “Own Worst Enemy”.

My old NBC strike squad actually made up Silverman-specific chants during the strike…of course, I’ve forgotten most of them, but, trust me, they made our Carson Daly chants look friendly!

In fact, at one point, there was talk of staging a Ben Silverman prom in honor of his statement about us “ugly writers” trying to “cancel the prom” when we threatened to bring down NBC’s telecast of that year’s Golden Globes. And though we never held the actual prom, we did get the Globes downgraded to a “news event”, and, as you can see, we crafted some pretty cool paraphernalia in preparation for it…so, suck it Silverman!

But prom or no prom, the good news today is that the cheesy-ass king of all things crappy at NBC is finally gone. Yay! Now, if we could just do something about those annoying “Jay Leno at 10PM” commercials…yikes…

“Project Runway” to air on Lifetime

You’ve probably already heard the news by now, but it sounds like crazy old Harvey Weinstein has finally worked out a deal with greedy old NBC Universal that will allow the long-delayed sixth season of “Project Runway” to finally see the light of day on Lifetime. Yay!

Terms of the deal were not disclosed and both sides are trying to play it all cool, but you just know it killed NBC Universal to lose another landmark series right now. I mean, with “ER” signing off last night, “Kings” boring audiences to tears and nothing remotely new and exciting on the horizon — except for maybe five nights a week of prime time Jay Leno (yawn) — NBC is, as Heidi Klum would say, definitely “out”.

But Lifetime, on the other hand is so “in” it hurts! “Rita Rocks”, “The 2009 Nora Roberts Collection” and now “Project Runway”? Man, “television for women” never sounded so good!