A day in the life of press tour: NBC

During last summer's tour, every now and then I would give a run-down of that day's schedule to give you an idea of what my day is like, and of what blog items might be forthcoming. I've been so slammed this tour that I haven't had a chance to do that, but because today is oddly-scheduled, and I have a few minutes of breathing room, I can give you a run-down of what's to come with NBC, after the jump...

I had to stay in the hotel this morning to beat an early East Coast deadline, but at the moment, many of the critics are on a TCA field trip to the sets of "Big Bang Theory" and "The Mentalist." Then when they get back, there's a lunchtime session for Crackle.com, one of many websites who have visited us this tour to pitch us on doing more coverage of online video. I imagine I'll have to work through that, unfortunately.

So NBC's "day" at the tour doesn't actually begin until 2 p.m., Pacific. In the good old days, I'd assume this was an opportunity for them to avoid having to get bad press from the East Coast papers, but everybody covers this stuff so thoroughly on their blogs that time doesn't really make much difference.

Here's how it's allegedly going to go (all times Pacific):

2-2:30 p.m.: An executive session, but not with Ben Silverman or his partner Marc Graboff. Instead, Silverman ducks the shoe again, and NBC trots out their new underlings Angela Bromstad (president of entertainment for the network and the studio) and Paul Telegdy (the reality guru). This is classic press tour strategery: you put the new guys up on the stage so that the reporters can't ask a lot of questions about the mistakes made by their predecessors (or, in this case, their bosses).

2:30-3 p.m.: A writing break.

3-3:30 p.m.: "Untitled Daniels/Schur/Poehler Series" may not have the snazziest of temporary titles, or even a filmed pilot, but it does have a script that I read this morning -- it's funny and feels both in the spirit of "The Office" and a good vehicle for Amy Poehler -- and we'll get to hear Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Greg Daniels and Mose Schrute (aka Ken Tremendous, aka Mike Schur) talk about what it might look like one day.

3:30-4 p.m.: Rachel Maddow and MSNBC president Phil Griffin talk about inauguration coverage plans, political paradigm shifts and, I'm guessing, ongoing tensions on the Olbermann/Matthew front.

4:15-4:45 p.m.: Jimmy Fallon and producer Mike Shoemaker talk about his upcoming talk show.

5-5:30 p.m.: Veteran miniseries producer Robert Halmi and the cast -- Scott Foley, Victor Garber and Mira Sorvino -- of his latest fantasy opus, "The Last Templar."

5:30-6 p.m.: John Wells' new cop show "Southland" and its very big cast -- including Tom Everett Scott, Ben McKenzie and Regina King -- are here, but I expect we'll spend at least part of the time talking about that pick-up of three extra "ER" final season episodes and what role that played in the pick-up of "Southland" (or vice versa).

6-6:30 p.m.: Conan O'Brien and producer Jeff Ross talk about their plans for "The Tonight Show" and why they'd rather have Jay Leno as a lead-in than as a competitor.

6:30-8 p.m.: In lieu of the traditional press tour party (Fox is the only broadcast network to host one this tour), we get a cocktail reception with the producers of some of their shows (the schedule doesn't make it clear whether it'll just be the people from today's panels, or if other folks like Tim Kring or Josh Schwartz might turn up).

So that's that with that. Back to writing.