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This is why I so love Hollywood… For days now, Craig Plestis, who is NBC Entertainment’s EVP of Alternative Programming, Development and Specials, has been calling everybody in his industry trying to chase down the hot rumor that he’s about to be fired. ”The best part is that he’s been walking around the office blaming his underlings for spreading the rumor that he’s getting shitcanned. When the person who started it his boss Ben Silverman,” my insider tells me. The way I hear it is that, right after MipCom, Silverman started telling reality TV types that “there’ll be changes” and “people will be relieved” – thereby sparking the rumor that Plestis will be history sometime before Christmas. That’s in turn creating hope that Plestis will be replaced by one or both of his well-liked and talented deputies — Libby Jaynes-Hansen who has worked on both Last Comic Standing and The Biggest Loser (NBC’s biggest reality franchise which Silverman personally brought in), and Jayson Dinsmore who’s the exec on Deal Or No Deal (and internally credited with transforming that show into an NBC hit). The problem is that, beyond America’s Got Talent, no recent NBC reality shows have tended to stick. Plestis ”hasn’t done anything at all in the three years he’s been there,” one of my sources confides. ”If Ben fires him, it’s the first management move he’s done that’s right.”

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