“Page Six” says in a

“Page Six” says in a lead item today that “embattled Paramount chief Brad Grey‘s days seem to be numbered” and that “speculation on a possible replacement for him is running rampant.” Okay, maybe…but does anyone really think Viacom president and CEO Tom Freston and the Paramount board are going to jettison Grey because federal prosecutors are rattling their sabers about some wiretapping mucky-muck that went on back in the ’90s when Grey was a talent manager, and because reporters are writing stories about this? LA Indie‘s Ross Johnson believes that upper-level executives relish wrestling matches of this sort, and that the pressure from the Pellicano case may actually strengthen the bond between Grey and Freston, who hired him. But all bets are off if prosecutors get the goods on Grey. “If the heat gets to be too much, they’ll all scatter,” a retired big-studio veteran believes. The “Page Six” item doesn’t even allude to the identity of the people passing this Grey-is-finished view along…just the usual “insiders” and “observers.” The only attribution mentions that week-old (3.24) scenario floated by British gossiper-blogger Toby Young about Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter being in the running — or wanting to be thought of as being in the running — to replace Grey. (I linked to this in a 3.25 item). It’s not wildly irrational, in any event, to suspect that friends of Carter (or Manhattanties with ties to the Tina Brown-Harvey Weinstein-Graydon Carter political demimonde) are pushing this buzz along. There’s a Vanity Fair story in the works about the Pellicano scandal, and Johnson believes that the writer (or at least a contributing reporter) is probably John Connolly, who has been reporting off and on about Pellicano since ’94 or thereabouts. “A damaging story” in Vanity Fair, the item warns, “could well be the nail in Grey’s coffin.” It also says that “while Carter’s name may be in play, others say it’s more likely the gig” — the top Paramount job now held by Grey — “will go to former Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider, who’s due to start as CEO at Paramount-owned DreamWorks SKG on April 10. Some say Snider was brought over to Paramount specifically to replace Grey should the need arise.”

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