Your Mayor has warned that detractors of our grand landscape, such as this critic, who apparently considers himself a minor-league Keith Olbermann, only serve to provide solace to our enemies, and today, the gravest possible proof was provided as a threat to Television’s vitality was exposed. NBC announced today that it planned to work in league with the renegades producing reality television and primetime game shows and will abandon scripted programming in its 8 p.m. timeslots across its schedule.

That, and they’re laying off 700 loyal employees.

Oh, and that they hope to eviscerate their news division with deep budget cuts.

One sort of have to wonder about a network that all but announces, “Ah, this TV thing is a passing fad. We’re throwing in the towel and will stick to short films on the Internets.�

Then again, you do have to feel for NBC. They began the 2006-07 season with a stable of slick, not-unpromising new series – well, and “20 Good Years� – and high hopes. And look at the results:

* “Kidnapped:� Good cast, good reviews; couldn’t buy an audience; shipped to Saturdays where it will pass on unnoticed.

* “Friday Night Lights:� Ecstatic reviews, even lower ratings.

* “30 Rock:� Mixed reviews; rampant viewer disinterest.

* “20 Good Years:� Nearly beaten in viewership last night by a show on Bravo.

* And, of course, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:� Tons of advance attention, given its impressive cast and impresario of a creator; has shed nearly half its original audience within a month and, worse, got beat this week by “What About Brian.� The performance of this Matthew Perry vehicle is almost enough to get NBC executives nostalgic about "Joey."

Clearly, the success of “Heroes� has not been enough to rescue NBC, which has seen its cheesefest game shows “Deal or No Deal� and “1 Vs. 100� pull far more spectacular numbers than its pricy, high-end series. It’s like having Ford Aspires outperform a fleet of Lexuses (Lexi?).

And so, NBC – whose slogan was, a lifetime ago, “The Quality Shows� – has become the Ford Aspire Network. The network will soon fill its 8 p.m. timeslots with cheap-to-produce and no doubt intellectually stimulating reality fare and more game shows that require the same sort of mental prowess required to select a suitcase in “Deal or No Deal.�

But one wonders whether NBC, which apparently has been shocked by the revelation that programming a broadcast network is an expensive proposition, has gone far enough in its budget-slashing ways. Here are a few more ideas for the network to save some money:

* Those suitcase models on “Deal or No Deal� no doubt are paid something; wouldn’t it be cheaper for the show to hire cute dogs? Of course, that would necessitate the creation of a craft-services table (the models obviously aren’t eating anything), but then again, it would just have to be stocked with kibble.

* While we’re at it, those suitcases look pretty pricey. Couldn’t they just use paper bags that Howie Mandel and the show’s crew bring from home after their visits to Trader Joe’s?

* Much less costly show: “1 Vs. 3.�

* Force any cast member of “The Office� not directly involved in a scene to perform actual clerical work for the network in the backgrounds of shots.

* Get Masi Oka’s character on “Heroes� – who can bend the time-space continuum – to bring time to a halt, then sneak into Nielsen family homes and switch the channels to NBC.

* End ongoing production of “Law & Order� shows and just run repeats. There’re so many episodes out there, how many people would notice, really?

* New 9 p.m. Tuesday series: “What’s on Fox?� New 9 p.m. Thursday series: “What’s on ABC?�

* Ask President Bush to pretty-please end the war in Iraq, citing a need to put an end to costly coverage. Or just borrow a page from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s� playbook and have correspondents report in front of greenscreens. Or just have Brian Williams read the newspaper to viewers.

* Hire amateurs to write and star in “Saturday Night Live.� Couldn’t get any worse.