Stone Phillips Loses Fat NBC Payday 34359

Exorbitant contracts at NBC? Those are the first to go, as any cost-cutter goes. Which means that while Brian Williams will stay on collecting his eight-figure sums, Dateline’s Stone Phillips, who’s been at the network for 15 years, will be on unemployment. When his contract is up in June, Stone will be gone, just like John Seigenthaler’s bloated payday. (Seigenthaler was replaced by Lester Holt.)

So who’s taking over for Stone? Nobody. Ann Curry (also Today’s news anchor) will be the solo host, which means she’ll have to shuttle the lead-ins to Chris Hansen’s pedophilia reports all by herself.