NBC buries the lede: Gabs about executive shuffles, refuses to talk about layoffs, utterly ignores mentioning that Jay Leno's going to prime time

This is one of the reasons reporters are in a constant state of exasperation with network executives: Today, NBC abruptly calls a press conference for an "organizational announcement." Given that earlier in the day, NBC-Universal uberlord Jeff Zucker had floated the notion of scaling back the network's number of hours of primetime programming - "Can we continue to broadcast 22 hours in primetime? Three of our competitors don't. Can we continue to broadcast seven days a week? One of our competitors doesn't" - we anxiously rearranged our schedules and phoned in, awaiting the big news.

Which, of course, wasn't big news at all, just an executive shuffle that Variety had already reported on. (One of the new executives executive produced "Grease: You're the One That I Want" and "I'm with Stupid" for NBC and "Viva Laughlin" for CBS, proving that if nothing else, he was a courageous man for allowing such failures to remain on his resume.) It was delivered in typical lipstick-on-a-pig fashion, referring to the 500 layoffs at NBC Universal as "right-sizing" the network, and that by "eliminating layers of bureaucracy," NBC was poised to become the "most-talent-friendly organization," because they no longer had anyone around the office with the time or inclination to give show-runners notes on their shows.

(Be sure to use lots of brown!)

So while we were listening to this folderol, Bill Carter was off chasing the real story: NBC actually is kind of ceding its primetime schedule - they're going to give Jay Leno the 10 p.m. hour Monday through Friday. It's, if not win/win, at least win/not-lose-too-much for NBC, who had already promised Conan O'Brien Jay's 11:30 p.m. timeslot five years ago: They keep Jay (and, perhaps more importantly, ABC or Fox don't get Jay), and they get five hours of incredibly cheap (if, probably, fairly low-rated) primetime programming.

But, of course, NBC Entertainment co-chairs Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff didn't mention this. (They will tomorrow, though.) Graboff was asked about Zucker's talking up cutting back primetime, and replied, I haven't seen the comments. (Then he was probably the only person on the phone call who hadn't.) "We're looking at everything [we can to] keep the broadcast network single-revenue stream viable in this economy." The typical non-answer answer.

Also, I think I figured something out about Ben Silverman: Whenever he's lying or just can't or doesn't want to answer a question, he starts jabbering away in industry jargon and keeps saying the same thing over and over.

For example: Asked about NBC's crummy fall, Silverman replied, "We need to be patient. Patience is really where we need to be ... we need to continue to be patient."

But not as patient as the people who have to listen to him speak.