You know it's going to be a long day when a network entertainment president starts off by describing last season as a "colonic."

(They're big on colonics in this town, but who needs to hear this stuff at 9 a.m.? Not me.)

NBC's Kevin Reilly is up there by himself, having to explain the network's fourth-place finish in 2004-05, while his boss, Jeff Zucker, who's presided over the Peacock's decline -- and was always happy to preen for the critics when things were going well -- seems for once to be shunning the spotlight.

Reilly, though, is stuck with Zucker's TelePrompTer legacy, reading his prepared remarks, pre-Q&A, off a giant screen in the back of the room that NBC employees were earlier attempting to shoo reporters away from, lest we inadvertently block Reilly's view and leave him speechless.