On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 11:42 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > I guess it depends on what you mean by instantly. The reports I referenced > suggested that Lauer had made it clear during his recent contract > renegotiation talks in March (eventually formalized in early April) that he > did not think Curry was working and wanted to make a change. That was three > months ago. I don't think it is too much to act for an employer to either > decide at that point to make the change (judging, rightly, that Lauer was > more important to them than Curry), offering Curry a relatively easy out > from her contract instead of a messy firing, or make the decision that Curry > was their girl, tell Lauer to suck it up, and then give her a real chance to > make it work.
The key is that NBC felt pressured by the ratings and competition from GMA. If they were happy with the ratings then nobody would care how Lauer felt at contract time. And once there was pressure there was no NBC News exec putting on a brave face and talking about confidence in the product. There was no attempt to let Curry finish out her contract. > > The dickishness here to me is not their decision to fire her (I actually > think they made a mistake in picking her as cohost to begin with; as a very > casual observer I would have gone with Guthrie to replace Vierra, and let > Curry go to CNN up front). The dickishness is in their deciding to keep her > even after Matt was dumping on her, only to toss her over the bus as a > sacrificial lamb at the first real sign of ratings trouble (I know they had > signs of rating trouble before March, but they recently had some > symbolically important signs). > > The link that ties the Conan situation to Curry is NBC's cultural inability > to make tough decisions (a culture apparently unaffected by recent corporate > changes). In latenight, they could not really commit to one host; keeping > them both around tempted them to give into dickishness when times got a > little tough. In terms of being dicks, they would have been better off > either going all in with Conan originally and wishing Leno the best in > whatever future endeavors he wanted to pursue; or going all in with Leno and > telling Conan he could either wait around until Leno decided to hang it up, > or wish him well on his future endeavors. Similarly with Curry, they could > have (should have, IMO) passed her by in the first place as co-host, but no > doubt were afraid she would burn them somehow at CNN (or wherever). > > Now, that is just on the dick-scale; maybe just in terms of business both > decisions have been pretty good. When NBC made their original Conan deal > they thought Leno was going to either retire or be waning in popularity by > the time the transition rolled around. When it turned out Leno was both > interested in continuing and still popular, NBC engaged in a complicated > series of moves the result of which kept the guy with the proven track > record in harness. In the morning, they have found a way to get a more > popular female co-host while keeping a potentially effective rival away from > their competition. Part of a business's brand is the way they treat their employees. People who watch a show regularly build up an attachment to the stars or hosts and they hold it against the show or the network if they feel the star/host is badly treated. Not promoting Ann Curry after 14 years on the show is disloyalty even if there are better hosts out there. NBC comes off as dickish when they are trying to deal with impossible situations. As your last paragraph suggests, if they end up looking like dicks and their decisions work out in the long run, they are probably happy with those outcomes. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
