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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The New York Post, which reported last week that Today cohost Katie Couric is thisclose to deciding to grab the brassier ring as anchor of CBS Evening News, now is offering a when: after the conclusion of May sweeps. "[May 26] is the last day of her [NBC] contract," an insider tells the paper, "so if she was leaving, [that timetable] would make sense."
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Sources whisper to the New York Post that because Today's Katie Couric is likely to leave NBC, coanchor Matt Lauer's plans to do a few projects for the Discovery Channel have been put on hold. "He was pretty disappointed," the sources note. But not, I suspect, as bummed as he'll be if she sticks around.
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Meredith Vieira somewhat skirted talk that she may replace Katie Couric on NBC's Today should the perky pixie get recruited to anchor CBS Evening News. Acknowledging that her deal with The View is up in August, she told CNN's Showbiz Tonight on Wednesday, "I never predict what's going to happen next, because my career has been so bizarre." As bizarre as there being only two Emmy nominees in the game-show categories?
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Bob Schieffer, CBS
If you already work for CBS News, don't count on getting the CBS Evening News anchor job.
CBS News president Sean McManus told reporters at the Television Critics Association winter press tour Wednesday that insiders at the network are not high on his list. Of course, it's been widely reported that the network wants to pursue Katie Couric, coanchor of NBC's Today, whose contract is up in May. But even if she decides to stay put at NBC, McManus said he's more likely to go with an outsider for the anchor job.
"That's probably the case," he said.
Why? "I'm not sure we have anyone who has the qualifications that the anchor should have," he says. "Part of that may be that there hasn't been quite enough emphasis on developing the next anchor." While there are many capable correspondents and substitute anchors at CBS, McManus added, none have the kind of high profile that would make them an obvious choice for the viewers.
Oddly enough,
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For the remainder of today's column, we shall burn through some year-end superlatives. First up, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams closed out the year with a fourth-quarter win among evening newscasts, averaging 9.8 million total viewers (compared to the in-transition ABC World News Tonight's 8.6 mil and CBS Evening News' 7.5 mil) and besting the rest in the key 25-54 age demo as well. That sound you just heard was Katie Couric's asking price leaping 10 percent.
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ABC has officially named hottie Elizabeth Vargas and, um, the neatly coiffed Bob Woodruff coanchors of World News Tonight, for which they have been the primary substitutes since Peter Jennings vacated the post months prior to his passing. The Eye Network, meanwhile, is still angling to steal Today's Katie Couric to front CBS Evening News, provided that she somehow can come away unscathed from Macy'sM&MBalloonGate.
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NBC News president Steve Capus
Back in 1997, Steve Capus was executive producer of The News with Brian Williams, the prime-time flagship newscast of NBC's fledgling cable news channel MSNBC. At the end of each broadcast, the show's staff often had the same thought: Is anybody out there? Nearly a decade later Williams is seen by 10 million viewers of NBC Nightly News, where he has finished his first year as anchor and where Capus also served as executive producer. On Tuesday Capus, 42, was named president of NBC News after filling the role on an interim basis when Neal Shapiro departed in September. While NBC struggles in prime time, under Capus' watch it has remained the leader in the evening news and in the morning, with a resurgent Today show. Now that his job is permanent, Capus talked with The Biz about the challenges ahead.
TVGuide.com: Congratulations on passing the audition. What do you think made this happen?Capus: When (NBC Universal Televis
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