Neal Shapiro’s “Lessening Power?”

“What you are missing in this is the lessening power of Neal Shapiro at NBC News,” an insider e-mailed this morning. “His #2 is now no longer in charge of Today (Lisa Hsia) and Jeff [Zucker]’s best friend Phil Griffin is now there. So what’s left for Shapiro? Very little… he’s on the clock.” NBCers have speculated that MSNBC chief Rick Kaplan is in line for Shapiro’s job. It’s all a question of timing. Meanwhile, Hsia is going to focus on “primetime news programming,” TV Week reported yesterday…

> Also: “There will be lots of changes” at NBC now, several insiders have suggested. Polly Powell will become the Burbank bureau chief now, “the job she has wanted and deserved for years,” an e-mailer says. And who will replace Bill Wheatley? One e-mailer suggests David Corvo, EP of Dateline. (But then who would replace Corvo — Marc Rosenwasser?