Jeff Zucker has long been rumored to be one of the New York Post’s biggest anonymous sources on all things GE/NBC. Surely not every story with a Peter Lauria byline carries Zucker’s fingerprints.

But many do.

So we sort of read the paper’s Business section with that always in mind.

So today’s article, about how corporate overlord GE is so afraid of tarnishing its triple-A credit rating that it refuses to give Zucker’s entertainment division the cash it needs to do anything but mosey along to the beat of a tired drummer, and how Zucker is “doing everything he can to grow the media giant” despite that fact, screams of a Zucker plant.

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The most worthwhile takeaway from today’s O’Reilly/News Corp. vs Olbermann/GE feud story isn’t the whiny phone calls from Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch to Jeff Zucker and Jeff Immelt complaining about Keith’s attacks on Fox News, or the whiny phone calls from Steve Capus to Ailes complaining about O’Reilly’s attacks on NBC News correspondent Richard Engel.

It’s that News Corp. wanted an lefty blog’s Bill O’Reilly “ambush video” to be off limits for Olbermann, even though O’Reilly’s own use of ambush video cameras drive some of the show’s highest ratings and YouTube views.

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While this morning’s Page Six item about Keith Olbermann recyles previous Jossip reports, it also makes one thing more clear: News Corp. has many vehicles to push its anti-MSNBC/GE crusade, and Bill O’Reilly’s diatribes are just one of them.

Repeating our previous reports about Keith Olbermann’s behavior and conflicts with other talent like David Gregory and Dan Abrams, P6 also finds itself on the front lines of O’Reilly’s battle against the network — which, it turns out, News Corp. tried to quell at the highest levels, and is now more than content to keep supporting. Just like the real war!

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How’s this for humbling: General Electric, whose chief Jeffrey Immelt has been under pressure from shareholders to sell off underperforming NBC, saw company-wide revenues drop by their largest share in decades.

Meanwhile, the NBC unit, which counts for 10 percent of total dollars, saw revenues grow by three percent. Perhaps that’ll excuse Ben Silverman’s use of swear words during “Family Hour”?

Below, watch the New York Times try to explain those four-letter phrases on The Office and 30 Rock without actually saying them. It’s fun watching them squirm.

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The item we thought we were running was about about how Barry Diller and John Malone are having settlement talks while suing each other in Delaware.

And then we found ourselves unable to ignore this expanding General Electric ad on Bloomberg.com, which displays a live interview with GE chief Jeff Immelt. After watching a minute or two of it, you’ll be directed to this site, where you can continue watching what’s essentially a shareholder conference call disguised as a “conversation about GE’s performance and the outlook for 2008.” The ad unit comes from rich media company Eye Wonder and, for us at least, is the first live streaming video we’ve seen in an ad. It’s quite captivating, and almost makes us forget about Immelt’s denials that he wants to sell off NBC.

The ad also lets you submit questions to Immelt. We asked, “Who makes your tie?” because all the other crap they were talking about was filled with too much financial jargon.

“Should we sell NBCU? The answer is no!” That’s GE chief Jeffrey Immelt screaming in his 2007 annual report, being sent to investors tomorrow. “I just don’t see it happening. Not before the Olympics, not after the Olympics. It doesn’t make sense.” Shareholders, who see the unit as dragging the bottom line and not fitting in with the rest of GE assets (oh, you didn’t know they made airplane parts?), might disagree. [NYT]

In September, it was reported NBC hacky sack and Jeff Immelt favorite Beth Comstock was going to be tossed back upstairs to GE after a quick run as NBC’s “integrated media” chief. Now, the move is official: Comstock will become the head of marketing and digital media for GE, which means she’s going to be heavily involved in the Beijing Olympics, which GE’s units are thoroughly ingrained in.

Some wondered whether she would survive the company’s churn, or just be punished, for the disaster that is iVillage (and its attempts at synergy). Turns out, she’s being given a veritable promotion, and the move was carefully orchestrated to look like one. But that doesn’t mean everyone has faith: While Comstock has racked up a few digital achievements (helping launch Hulu.com, which is still too young to call a success) and GE is on target to meet its goal of $1 billion in digital revenues, plenty of folks aren’t willing to forgive her rife-with-mistakes learning-on-the-job way of doing things.

Comstock’s exit, and the dissolution of her position, leaves three players in her wake, all reporting to CEO Jeff Zucker: network sales chief Mike Pilot takes over research; Universal Television president Jeff Gaspin takes over iVillage; and biz dev chief Salil Mehta will run digital strategy.

In the coming weeks, NBC executives will probably have to come up with a new primetime lineup, but at least they won’t have new bosses anytime soon.

At a media event sponsored by Syracuse, Jeff Zucker insisted that General Electric will not sell NBC now or after the 2008 Olympics. Zucker said that GE’s other Jeff, Jeff Immelt, the CEO, has been “very clear” that network will not be for sale in the foreseeable future.

And what about those rumors that GE was looking to dump NBC after the Olympics? That was nothing but a bunch of bitches gossiping.

[Reuters]

Well, that was about as short-lived as the career of a So You Think You Can Dance winner. GE ducked out of the race for Dow Jones, leaving stodgy candidates like Rupert Murdoch to cover. On the bright side, GE’s move forces Financial Times owner Pearson to backtrack on and CEO Marjorie Scardino claims she would only sell their paper “over my dead body.”

Michael Jackson savior and Radar suspect Burkle responds to rebuffed bid for Los Angeles Times by joining GE in making a play for Rupert Murdoch’s big game.

Whew, we’re exhausted.