NBC co-chairman Marc Graboff, Zucker, Silverman, and NBC Uni Television president Jeff Gaspin … in happier times

We took an informal poll around the office, and quickly concluded this statement from Jeff Zucker:

From our perspective, there are no questions about Ben Silverman's job security. From our perspective, he's done everything we've asked and more. We are incredibly happy with the job he's done and hope that he'll be with us for a long time to come.

… is wholly lacking in actual confidence in Ben "Paris Hilton" Silverman. "From our perspective"? You "hope" that Silverman will be around "for a long time to come"?

You ain't fooling anybody, Z Man.

Silverman's job is, despite any notion to the contrary, in serious jeopardy. There are only two things saving him.

• First is his contract's parachute clause. NBC must keep him in his role as co-chairman, without demotion or a change in job responsibilities. If they don't, or if they fire him outright, he is owed a kill fee, and that's somewhere in the eight-figure range.

• Second, it would be on Jeff Zucker's head. Zucker himself hired Silverman 15 months ago, while the boy genius was still heading his production company Reveille. If Zucker had to face shareholders, and the critical media, and fire Silverman, his head would be held low. And Zucker's top priority right now is making everyone believe all is well at NBC, given the incessant speculation that General Electric would want to sell it off. (Given the current economic climate, Zucker has at least a few free months on his plate.)

But there is plenty working against Silverman.

• It's Silverman's job to resuscitate the network, taking it out of fourth place and returning "Must See TV" to a statement, not a punchline. With the new fall season premiering Monday, nobody who's taken five minutes to glance at the programming slate thinks that's a possibility.

• Silverman, notorious for his late-night partying and playboying, hasn't curtailed those activities either. The "morning meeting" is at 2:45pm, to accommodate his 11am arrival at the office. This leads to office gossip, resentment, and low morale. We'd like to laugh at those sort of things, but inside NBC's West Coast offices, they're serious matters. Only those in Silverman's inner circle are glad that he's there; everyone else wouldn't mind seeing him go.

• He's brought more controversy than ratings to the network. Hiring his Reveille partner Teri Weinberg, he also brought Weinberg's live-in boyfriend inside NBC. Though Weinberg promised not to get involved, she ended up pushing her boyfriend's project — "a comedy called Zip, about a down-on-his-luck con artist" — inside the network. Eventually, NBC paid $1.75 million to buy out the boyfriend's contract and make him disappear.

• Oh, and then there's Jeff Zucker himself. Though, as we mentioned above, Zucker's own reputation is at stake with Silverman, it's plainly obvious that Zucker is planting the seeds to have him removed. We've spotted a number of anti-Silverman items in the New York Post — the NBC chief's favorite sounding board — that reek of Zucker plants. And if that is the direction he's leaning, then Zucker certainly cares less about explaining his hiring decision and more about making sure everybody, inside NBC and all over Hollywood, is comfortable with Silverman's ouster. Whenever that day may come.