My favorite TV moment this week...
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 overanalyzed. Couric's 15-year reign at the top of the morning game is one for the books, and the anticipation of her taking the helm of CBS Evening News and joining the 60 Minutes roster will be intense.
No question she will be a starry asset for CBS News, but the Evening News game is a tough and tricky assignment, and her impact won't truly be felt until the first major news crisis commands her to become not only the face but the backbone of the entire CBS News operation.
And what of Today? I'm betting it will do just fine, especially now that it's confirmed that Meredith Vieira is coming aboard. She has the news chops, which presumably haven't calcified during her stint baby-sitting the divas of The View. She has the personality, which shines through not just on The View but on the daytime version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
For those who think hosting a game show hurts your news cred, this is Today we're talking about, and Hugh Downs juggled that and Concentration for years. (Which is not to say that she'll be able to do both. I would imagine she'll give up Millionaire to focus on adjusting to the Today regimen.) Bottom line: It's always a good thing for a morning-show anchor not to take oneself too seriously (which is why I enjoyed that Matt Lauer moment so much).
These were hardly surprise moves — all of this had been dissected thoroughly in the press before the official announcements went out — but still, it's an epic week in the history of high-profile women in TV news.
How Katie and Meredith fare (kind of hard to think of them as Couric and Vieira, isn't it?) will determine the future and fortunes of several of the most prestigious news programs, and institutions, in all of TV.
