Former host of Win Ben Stein's Money and Turn Ben Stein On (and also some less important jobs like scriptwriting for Richard Nixon) has been terminated from the New York Times. Specifically, he will no longer be writing his weekly business opinion column. The company took one look at his other job as a spokesperson for FreeScore.com and found it to be a conflict of interest.

There are a number of ways this could be spun. No doubt the conservative press will consider this a strike against their cause since they have always pegged the New York Times as a liberal newspaper. I do admit that I find the business practices of sites such as FreeScore.com to be suspect (they advertise as free, but further analysis reveals that one has to pay for their services). Perhaps he should have supported a less sleazy one like Cash4Gold.com.

The following is one of his commercials for FreeScore.com. Judge for yourself whether the Times was justified.

I don't usually offer advice to television characters for a variety of reasons, number one being they (or the people who create them) don't listen to me, and number two being I don't want to be taken away by the authorities. However, I'm risking the latter and flying in the face of the former to serve up some counsel to Jim Halpert. Attention Jim: you are on the verge of being fired!

All the signs are there on The Office. Jim has thrived in Dunder Mifflin under Michael Scott's leadership (such as it was), by doing just enough to satisfy corporate. He had a comfy niche in the Scranton branch. Well, the happy times are over. The new boss, Charles Miner, does not like Jim.

Something tells me that this reality show will cause a little bit of controversy.

Endemol, the people who bring you Big Brother and other shows, has another reality show in the works titled Someone's Gotta Go. It will feature 10 contestants who live together in a house (a la Big Brother and The Real World), but there's one catch: there's no bathroom! The one who can hold things in the longest wins $500,000 and a year's supply of bathroom tissue.

Well, OK, that's not the premise, but it's actually not as insulting and embarrassing as the actual premise of the show. Someone's Gotta Go will feature employees of a real company who give a pay cut to a fellow employee and vote out a fellow employee at the end of each show. Please note that these are real employees at a real company who are really going to lose their jobs, not to mention have their personal details revealed on national television.

The "fun" will air on FOX.

If you've ever turned on a tennis tournament on NBC, even for a few minutes, you've probably either seen or heard Bud Collins. Colorfully-dressed, exuding enthusiasm for the sport he loved, Collins always strove to make even the most casual fans into devotees. He may have even succeeded in a few cases (though for me, those little skirts Chris Evert wore on the court were what did the trick).

Unfortunately, this will be Bud's last Wimbledon for NBC, as the network has decided not to renew his contract. Collins, 78, was with NBC for 35 years. He plans on continuing to cover tennis in some fashion, because, as Collins put it, he's "too young to retire."

At this point, it just feels like we're watching Isaiah Washington self-destruct. Since being fired from Grey's Anatomy, he has said some pretty stupid stuff. But this one takes the cake.

Washington gave an interview to the Houston Chronicle, his hometown newspaper, where he says that actor T.R. Knight is the one who should have been fired from Grey's Anatomy. Sure, Washington is the one who practically got into a fistfight on set with co-star Patrick Dempsey after Washington used a derogatory gay slur referring to Knight. But, Washington says, Knight went on to have the nerve to be offended by it and ended up creating a negative work environment.

As of 6 pm eastern, there are more than 14,000 signatures on an online petition to fire Elisabeth Hasselbeck from The View. Of course, this is more fallout from her split-screen debate with former co-host Rosie O'Donnell. It was the debate--the split screen in particular--that made Rosie leave the show three weeks early.

So, NBC's fall schedule sucks. At least, that's the message I'm getting today with the news that president of NBC entertainment, Kevin Reilly, has lost his job.

I'm trying to understand why NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker would hold on to Reilly for the crucial planning of the fall schedule after his lackluster performance with last fall's expensive-but-low-rated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Kidnapped, etc. And this spring, NBC once again came in last in the ratings among the big four networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX).

After NBC's upfronts presentation earlier this month, advertisers didn't really leap at any of the offerings on the new fall lineup (because they're boring). That's an obvious reason to get rid of Reilly, but it also doesn't put a lot of confidence in the fall schedule.

It's a rumor that's been going around Hollywood for years; heck, we even mistakenly thought this was going to happen last year. But now it looks like NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker has finally had enough and is replacing the president of NBC Entertainment, Kevin Reilly.

Over the weekend, Nikki Finke of LA Weekly reported on her blog that Reilly will be replaced by two people: producer Ben Silverman, whose company brought The Office and Ugly Betty to the U.S., will be in charge of the entertainment side and Marc Graboff, currently NBCU Television's West Coast chief, will run the business side. Bill Carter of The New York Times is also reporting on the change, but in a less definitive manner.

The April 4, 2007 entry on the "Couric and Co." blog on the CBS News site no longer includes a video essay on libraries, but rather an apology for omitting credit to a March 15 article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Of the Places You'll Go, Is the Library Still One of Them?" by Jeffrey Zaslow.

The blog contains video essays written by producers of the CBS Evening News and read by anchorperson Katie Couric and other contributors to the newscast. The producer who wrote the copy for this particular episode did not credit Zaslow's article, and was subsequently fired. Sandra Genelius, a spokesperson for CBS News, said the content was almost completely taken from the Wall Street Journal piece. The name of the fired producer was not released.

CBS became aware of the incident when an editor from the Wall Street Journal called to note the similarities between the article and the online video essay.

• At 8, CBS has a new Survivor, followed by new episodes of CSI and Shark.
• FOX has a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8.
• TBS has one of the great Friends episodes at 8, "The One With All The Thanksgivings."
• At 8:30, Showtime has the documentary Fired! (I read the book, it's quite good.)
• At 9:30, NBC has a new Andy Barker, P.I.
• At 10, ABC has a new October Road.
• Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay at 10, then a new Ace of Cakes.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Showbiz Show with David Spade.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Just got a tip into TV Squad HQ; there is scuttlebutt that NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly is going to be fired sometime later this afternoon. Apparently, Reilly's failure to create a hit for NBC during his tenure is going to cost him his job.

If you recall, Reilly programmed a number of expensive, lavishly-done pilots for this fall season, like Kidnapped, Friday Night Lights, and Studio 60, all of which are tanking in the ratings. That along with a history of tentative decision-making was his undoing. The announcement will be made this afternoon; expect to see it in the trades tomorrow.

(Update 11:49 ET: No announcement tonight, as our tipster told us would happen. We contacted NBC for a response to this rumor and they didn't confirm or deny it. Guess we'll just keep waiting.)

(Update 10/19 8:23 PM: Well, folks, looks like the rumor -- as with all the past rumors of Reilly's firing -- didn't pan out, since he spoke at a panel of network heads earlier today. Our tipster has been thrown into TVS HQ's moat. Let's hope said tipster can avoid the crocs and piranha...)

While Lou Piniella was being introduced as the new manager of the Chicago Cubs yesterday, he mentioned the incident that got Steve Lyons fired from Fox after game three of the ALCS over the weekend. If you remember, Lyons made what could have been construed as an offensive remark about Piniella's Spanish heritage during the broadcast. Although, if you read the entire incident, it was really more of a case of Lyons acting like an idiot than being purposely offensive.

Well, Piniella, who laughed when Lyons made his remark during the game, reiterated that he had no problem with it; "There isn't a racist bone in his body. Not one," he told the gathered reporters. "I've known the guy personally. He was kidding with me, nothing more and nothing less."

Lyons will keep his job on the Dodgers broadcasting team, after going through diversity training. I tell ya, Vin Scully's rolling in his grave over this, and the man's not even dead yet.

On Fox's baseball broadcasts, analyst Steve "Psycho" Lyons has always acted like a bit of a dipweed. You know what I'm talking about: he'd rather make a dumb joke at someone's expense than, you know, analyze the baseball game. Now an offhanded remark about fellow analyst Lou Piniella made during Friday's Game 3 of the ALCS has gotten Lyons fired from Fox Sports.

According to The New York Times, Lyons tried to continue on a line about "trying to find a wallet" that Pinella mentioned earlier in the game; when Piniella spoke a line in Spanish, Lyons said, "Lou's habla'ing some Español there, and I'm still looking for my wallet. I don't understand him and I don't want to sit close to him now." Fox fired him right after the game and replaced him for the rest of the series (which turned out to be only one game, as the Tigers swept the A's) by radio analyst Jose Mota.

Do you think he used his catchphrase? Donald Trump has fired Carolyn Kepcher, the blonde assistant who has been at his side all these years on The Apprentice. The New York Post is reporting that Carolyn, who is merely 36 years old, was fired for not being able to focus. Apparently she's quite the busy bee now that she's a pseudo-celebrity and all. The paper says she's trying to juggle her responsibilities for Trump with her many speaking engagements and recently, while away on a speaking engagement, Trump was unable to reach her.

Aside from monitoring the teams on The Apprentice, Carolyn's real job was to run the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York. Trump says her duties on the show will be done by his daughter, Ivanka. Maybe Carolyn's job is the big prize for the next winner of The Apprentice.

Despite yesterday's report in the LA Times, Saturday Night Live actor Horatio Sanz says he's still a member of the cast. He tells the Chicago Sun-Times that he doesn't know "what the hell is going on" but he has no reason to believe he's out of a job. The LA Times says that Sanz, Kenan Thompson, and Chris Parnell are out. But, TMZ.com says it's Sanz and Will Forte who are cut from the show. (Will says he's staying, too) And the New York Post says Maya Rudolph is considering leaving the show.

Lorne Michaels had better speak up soon.

[Via Pop Candy and TV Tattle]