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If this morning's reports of previous workplace lady problems and secret HBO settlements weren't enough to ruin CEO-in-hasty-absentia Chris Albrecht's day (pictured at left in happier. pre-mugshot times), the LAW's Nikki Finke's afternoon item claiming that the executive has an ankling in his very near future ought to do the trick. We're not up on our corporate crisis-management lingo, but whatever "toast" means, it doesn't sound very positive. Reports Finke:

I'm told today that it was Jeff Bewkes, the chairman-in-waiting of parent company Time Warner, who pressured Chris Albrecht to take the leave of absence from HBO. But now I've spoken to sources who say the situation has ramped up several notches because of the Los Angeles Times' and my own reporting about Albrecht's past behavior with women at the cable pay channel.

The result, I hear, is that Albrecht is being told to quit or be fired. This comes when Albrecht only has six months left on his contract as chairman/CEO. I can tell you that, already, the inside jockeying to succeed Albrecht has begun. "We're reached a point where he's toast," an HBO insider just told me. "He has very few options left. He's got to resign now or he'll be fired." I'm told Time Warner's Bewkes wants this resolved before the annual shareholder's meeting takes place on May 18th.

We suppose we'll have to wait and see if the next press release contains either a resignation or firing notice, but in somewhat happier HBO-related news, it seems that the presumably distracted network finally remembered to send its Jack Valenti memorial ad over to Variety.