Whether they’re not-so-subtly gunning for her candidacy, or merely capitalizing on all of the already rampant speculation about her candidacy, isn’t quite clear. I’m going to go ahead and venture a wild guess that it’s a good bit of both.

Comcast Corp.’s NBC broadcast network is developing live-event programs and mini-series to draw audiences when programs air as opposed to recording them to watch later on DVRs.

NBC is developing four mini-series, including a four-hour show based on Hillary Clinton, who will be played by Diane Lane, Bob Greenblatt, chairman of entertainment, said yesterday at a TV critic conference in Beverly Hills.

… Live events and high-profile mini-series draw more live viewers than TV series, Greenblatt said. With DVRs now in more than half of U.S. TV homes, the programs are a way to limit viewing on the devices, which allow audiences to skip commercials.

“We have to do everything we can to get as many people to watch a show when it airs as possible,” Greenblatt said. …

But, could this little project violate FEC rules, you might ask? Nope — not if they get to it while the speculation about Clinton’s 2016 candidacy is still just speculation.

Will NBC run afoul of campaign laws that require equal time for presidential candidates? Not if the network gets the project on in a hurry.

“She’s not going to probably declare her candidacy for two more years,” NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said, “so this could well have aired before that.”

The chronology of the mini-series will reportedly begin in 1998, smack in the middle of the high-profile and surely high-drama moments surrounding her presidential husband’s scandalous affair. That means that we’ll be getting heavy doses of his impeachment scenario, her successful Senate bid, and then her loss to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary — but John Fund has a great breakdown over at National Review of what we’ll very likely be missing. Ahem.

Incidentally, by the way, this is happening today, too:

President Obama will host Hillary Rodham Clinton, his one-time campaign foe who later served as his secretary of state, at lunch Monday at the White House.

Obama and Clinton will meet for a lunch in the president’s private dining room, the White House announced Sunday. Their meeting will be closed to the press. …

As she weighs another campaign, Clinton has been traveling the country giving dozens of speeches, both paid and pro-bono, and is working on a new book.