CBS is taking it easy on us today, scheduling just four sessions, including the eagerly awaited Katie Couric panel and a Q&A with the cast of CSI (sans William Petersen). We're also having lunch with Rachael Ray, and my Aunt Joan will flay me if I don't hit her up for VIP. tickets to her new talk show. I cannot go back home to New York without those tickets. BREAKFAST9:10 am: Omelet stations! Egg-cellent! CBS NEWS Q&A WITH KATIE COURIC9:40 am: America's sweetheart is 10 minutes late. Maybe she's having last-minute wardrobe issues. Wow, could I be any more sexist? 9:45 am: America's sweetheart is 15 minutes late. Maybe she's on the phone renewing her restraining order against Ann Curry. 9:46 am: Katie's finally in the house — and she's eschewed her signature short skirt for a simple tan pantsuit that screams "serious newswoman!" A CBS publicist blames her tardiness on one of the omelet stations setting "off the fire alarm." Hmmm... I didn't hear a fire alarm. 9:47 am: ...
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Tom Brokaw, Global Warming: What You Need to Know
Since leaving the NBC Nightly News anchor chair in 2004, Tom Brokaw has been anything but "retired." As host of Global Warming: What You Need to Know (premiering Sunday at 9 pm/ET on Discovery Channel), the newsman posits some reasons for our planet's higher fever.
TV Guide: Why'd you get involved with the documentary?
Tom Brokaw: I've been watching [the issue] for some time, and like a lot of people I've been trying to figure out the difference between fact and fiction. The scientific consensus is now pretty overwhelming. There are still scientists out there who will be dismissive of it, but more and more are signing on. What's been so striking to me is that more
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Question: Read the Dispatch on Katie Couric. Agreed with everything you said. I've read a lot about her leaving Today, but in all that I've read, I haven't seen any mention of when she'll actually start anchoring CBS Evening News. Do you have any idea?
Answer: She'll begin her reign in the CBS Evening News anchor chair in September. That's when Meredith Vieira settles into Katie's old job at Today as well.
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Charles Gibson
After Charles Gibson was named anchor of ABC World News Tonight, he got a call from a colleague saying, "The tortoise has won the race." Indeed, after all the hype about traveling anchors, webcasts and updates for the West Coast, the network turned to its most experienced and least flashy veteran to head its flagship broadcast. Gibson takes over for Elizabeth Vargas, who has been flying solo since coanchor Bob Woodruff sustained
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OK, Katie Couric is replacing Bob Schieffer and Meredith Vieira is replacing Katie. But who will fill Mer's chair at The View? Insiders tell the New York Post that Everybody Loves Raymond's Patricia Heaton — who has been eyeing a View-like talker of her own — is a front-runner. But the addition of Heaton, a Republican, could dictate the replacement of like-minded Elizabeth Hasselbeck (with, perhaps, a Latino audience-grabber like Fuse TV's Marianela Pereyra), a source tells the paper. A View rep labels the buzz as "rumor and conjecture," saying it will be some time before Vieira's successor is named.
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My favorite TV moment this week (granted, I've been on the road and haven't watched a lot) occurred early Wednesday morning, as Matt Lauer defused the mawkish sentiment on the Today set in the wake of Katie Couric's long-awaited announcement that she would be leaving soon for CBS.
"Also coming up in this half hour..." Lauer quipped, as the Today crew (a great group, as I can attest to from the experience of being on the show a handful of times) broke into laughter.
What I loved about that gag was how it underscored the fact that life on Today would go on, no doubt quite robustly, after the Katie Couric era ends. (There have been so many: the Bryant Gumbel-Jane Pauley era; the Barbara Walters-Hugh Downs era; and so on).
This is a historic shift, no question, and shouldn't be underestimated even as it's overanaly
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Meredith Vieira, The View
History is about to repeat itself at NBC's Today.
Any minute now, The View's Meredith Vieira will sign on as coanchor to replace Katie Couric after she leaves to join the CBS Evening News. But it looks like Vieira will keep her other gig as host of the syndicated
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At the top of Thursday's The View, Meredith Vieira announced that she is leaving the talker to fill the vacancy being left by Katie Couric at NBC's Today, effective this September. Couric, meanwhile, may face an uphill battle as the just-christened anchor of CBS Evening News. In a poll conducted by TV Guide and the Associated Press, 49 percent say they prefer Couric as a morning-show cohost, versus 29 percent who say they'll prefer her in the evening. But Couric has the vote of no less than venerable news vet Walter Cronkite, who tells the New York Post, "I think she's highly capable and I'm absolutely delighted that she's come over to CBS."
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Katie Couric's out at Today; Meredith Vieira in?
Ending months of speculation, Katie Couric marked her 15th anniversary on Today by announcing on Wednesday morning that she is leaving NBC's morning news program. "After listening to my heart and my gut, I've decided I'll be leaving at the end of May," she said on air. The longest-serving anchor in Today history, Couric is expected to fill the anchor chair at CBS Evening News, in a deal the Wall Street Journal says will also get her face time on 60 Minutes, as well as her own documentary crew, and fetch her a cool $15 million a year. "Sometimes change is a good thing," Couric told viewers. "Although it may be terrifying to get out of your comfort zone, it's very exciting to start a new chapter in your life." As for her Today successor, a source at The View tells the New York Daily News that it's all but a done deal that Meredith Vieira will fill the vacancy.
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CBS' The Early Show
There probably isn't anyone on Earth who has produced more hours of morning television than Steve Friedman. In two stints and 10 years of producing NBC's Today, he worked with Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. He devised the show's street-level studio in Rockefeller Plaza, which has become a major Manhattan attraction. He led CBS' effort to become a serious player in morning TV when he launched The Early Show with Gumbel and Jane Clayson in 1999. The show has never challenged Today or ABC's Good Morning America in the ratings, but it has become a significant profit center for CBS News. Friedman followed pal Gumbel out of CBS in 2002, but the network's current news president Sean McManus has brought him back — as vice president in charge of morning broadcasts — in the hopes that Friedman can take The Early Show to the next level. The Biz talked with him about how
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