30 Rock is well known for using both real-life news events and personalities to drive their plot, but last night’s episode featured a storyline ripped from the Mediaite headlines: NBC’s takeover by a Philadelphia cable provider, affectionately referred to as “Kabletown.” It also featured a cameo by Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (also known as “the funny one” amongst the NBC News talent lineup. Video after the jump.

Yesterday, the news that former News Corp. heavyweight Peter Chernin had been advising Comcast in its bid for NBC Universal sent shockwaves throughout the media world. Before the speculation as to what this means gets out of hand, it’s worth bringing up one key data point: both of Chernin’s top deputies, Katherine Pope and Dylan Clark, are former NBC/Uni execs.

Media Decoder reports that last week, ABC averaged an abysmal 1.1 rating among 18- to 49-year-old viewers for the third time this summer, putting it behind CBS, NBC, Fox, and even Univision.

There’s no doubt that a lot of ABC execs have been getting stern talkings-to from their superiors lately, but Steve McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment Group, has to be sweating harder than most.

Barry Diller appears to be making a habit of taking well known media types and giving them a lot of money to reinvent themselves on the web. A LOT. Diller is currently funding Tina Brown‘s Daily Beast venture — to the tune of $18 million, and is apparently kicking in $100 million for his just announced venture with departing NBCU chairman Ben Silverman. Just how deep do Diller’s pockets go?

So after news broke this morning that Ben Silverman was leaving NBCU, more than one person in the office wondered a) how come Nikki Finke hadn’t been the one to break it, and b) what would Nikke Finke blog about from now on. Nikke Finke has subsequently solved both mysteries for us in what could be referred to as The Finke-Silverman Experiment Ends, A Play in 5 Acts.