The Peacock Goes For The Jugular

The Post's Page 6 reports on the bloodbath that went down at the NBC studios yesterday after lunch. Fourteen staffers of the Access Hollywood show returned from lunch to find a cruel surprise awaiting them:

"It was really awful. Their ID cards wouldn't open the gate, and then a security guard came over and told them they were no longer employed there," one insider told Page Six. "Of course, the bosses waited until they'd finished producing the day's show before canning them."

To add insult to injury: "Access Hollywood" spokesman Joe Schlosser laughed when we asked him about the bloodbath, then got serious and said: "It has never been easy to make adjustments to the staff." He added the firings were part of a "restructuring of the show," then asked us not to report he had chuckled.

Ouch.

Rumor has it that across the board layoffs are about to go down at the peacock network and scores of staffers may be brown-bagging it in the near future.