No sooner had Vulture buddy Nikki Finke broken the news on Friday about the firing of Universal Media Studios president Katherine “Black Widow” Pope (along with NBC Entertainment EVP Teri Weinberg and reality-TV czar Craig Plestis) than network wunderkind (and Vulture hero) Ben Silverman was already on the phone with his friends at the New York Post. As you’ll recall, last month, an anonymous “network insider,” who everyone knows was Silverman, told “Page Six” that the failures of My Own Worst Enemy and Lipstick Jungle were all Pope’s fault (“Every program she touches turns to death,” said the source). On Saturday, under the headline “NBC Ax Fells ‘Black Widow,’” “Page Six” ran more anonymous quotes about Pope — an executive once mentioned as a possible replacement for Silverman if he were ever, heaven forbid, fired — from another “network insider” who is almost certainly Ben Silverman: “She had to be held accountable for her failures … We can’t become the car companies. We have to come up with a hybrid engine.” Then the environmentally conscious, inane-metaphor-loving network insider slammed down the phone and had his assistant order a set of tiger-size Santa hats for the upcoming NBC holiday party.
2ND UPDATE: NBC UNIVERSAL SHAKE-UP! Teri Weinberg And Katherine Pope Out [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
NBC AX FELLS ‘BLACK WIDOW’ [NYP]
