Ann Curry
Ann Curry learned that you're a member of the Today family until the ratings say you're not.
Curry spent her final morning as co-anchor with Matt Lauer on Thursday, giving a tearful goodbye before heading to a new role as the program's anchor-at-large and NBC News national and international correspondent (which came with a new long-term contract). Savannah Guthrie, NBC News legal correspondent and co-anchor of the third hour of Today for the last year, will be named as Lauer's new partner on Friday, according to sources familiar with the plan.
Curry, who joined Today in 1997 as a newsreader, was part of ...
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Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall may have fallen off the radar before he won The Celebrity Apprentice in May. But now the 56-year-old comic who once revolutionized late night will continue to blaze his comeback trail with a new nightly syndicated talk show set to debut next year. Here are some things he said that made us...
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Ann Curry
Ann Curry's era as co-anchor of NBC's Today will be brief, but the network is making every effort to keep her in the family.
NBC News executives and Curry's representatives are working on a new deal for a new high-profile role that will play to her strengths as an international correspondent. Getting her to accept that role, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, is vital to making her transition out of Today a smooth one.
"They want to make Ann OK with this," says the insider. "They can't...
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Lester Holt
Twenty years ago, the hottest genre in network television wasn't sitcoms, dramas or reality shows — it was newsmagazines. CBS's 60 Minutes was the number-one show. ABC had Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs scoring big ratings on 20/20 and signed Diane Sawyer for Primetime. NBC had the most difficult time getting a newsmagazine off the ground until it launched Dateline NBC on March 31, 1992 after trying and failing with 17 other shows.
Over the next 20 years...
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Kelly Ripa, Conan O’Brien
Change can be scary — especially for a TV show that swaps hosts or faces new competition. Here's a look at how a few longtime favorites have been handling tough transitions.
Live! With Kelly
Regis Philbin sat next to...
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Mike Wallace
CBS News legend Mike Wallace was so competitive he even poached an interview from his son.
At Tuesday's memorial service for his father, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace recounted how in 1996, he booked comedian Chris Rock for a coveted sit-down on ABC's 20/20. At the last moment, Rock...
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Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV
The DVR and online video streaming of your favorite shows has turned Must See TV into Must See When I Get Around to It. But Warren Littlefield, former entertainment president of NBC, has reminded us of what was possible not so long ago. His new book, Top of The Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV (May 1, Doubleday), recounts his successful run at the network and the inside stories of the shows that...
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Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann must be used to seeing blown-up bridges in his rearview mirror. His departure from cable network Current after just nine months is the latest in a series of ugly breakups with employers. So what are his job options now?
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Matt Lauer
The team from ABC's Good Morning America sent a bucket of golf balls to Matt Lauer to congratulate him on his new deal to remain at NBC's Today. But the game for ratings leadership will only get more intense.
Lauer's new agreement keeps him in the coanchor chair of the morning show for...
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Melissa Francis
As a child actress in the 1980s, Melissa Francis performed in more than 100 commercials and TV shows, including Little House on the Prairie. She left Hollywood for Harvard, where she studied economics, but eventually found herself in front of a camera again as a financial reporter and news anchor. Francis recently jumped from CNBC to Fox Business Network, where she'll have her own daily program starting later this spring, giving viewers a regular venue to catch her feisty interviewing style.
"She has a playful yet inquisitive edge to her that makes her different than the die-cast cable anchors," says Piers Morgan Tonight executive producer Jonathan Wald, who worked with...
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