Another One Bites The Dust: NBC's Gaspin Out

In a move anticipated by many, Jeff Gaspin, chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment Group, is resigning after failing to find an appropriate position in the new company to be majority owned by Comcast.

Gaspin -- who was in the position just over a year and a half -- is responsible for all broadcast, cable, television production and distribution. In a memo to NBC staffers, Gaspin said he would be leaving just after the merger is completed.

He said this decision came after many conversations with Steve Burke, the COO of Comcast and the new presumptive chairman of NBC Universal.

Gaspin, a 20-year veteran of NBC, had been given the unenviable task of cleaning up the Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien mess early in January,, after O'Brien's ratings struggled in his role as host of "The Tonight Show". Gaspin made the uneasy decision -- ultimately rejected by O'Brien -- to move his "Tonight" show back a half-hour, returning Leno to a new half-hour program in a post-local news time period.

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The initial move to put O'Brien in place of Leno was something Gaspin's outgoing boss Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, ultimately took responsibility for.

Rumors swirled in recent days that Comcast's Burke has been looking to put its own stamp on his new leadership -- including Bob Greenblatt, ex-head of entertainment for Showtime, to run NBC Television Entertainment, and Ted Harbert, chairman of Comcast Entertainment Group -- which includes E! Entertainment -- to run NBC's television business areas.

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