On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 5:03 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> To me, the article is really trying to fan the flames of controversy. > These sorts of shows constantly retool regardless of ratings. There is > no such thing as stability in network TV, especially NBC. I only need > to try to count all of the former Today Show hosts in my lifetime to > understand that. > > http://nymag.com/news/features/today-show-hosts-2013-4/ I thought it was pretty good. Despite his protests in the interview, Lauer has been working the media pretty good to spin this story for quite a while now, and I think it helped to get one cohesive narrative of how events unfolded. I was not aware of the conflict between Capus and Bell, and how that contributed to the problems at Today. As far as stability goes, there has been one male host at Today since 1997 - that's 16 years. Two male hosts since 1982 - that's two in 31 years. There has been more turnover on the female side, but even so, before the current unpleasantness, there has been two female hosts at Today since 1991 - that's two in 20 years. I think that all qualifies as pretty stable. As nice a job as NBC did replacing Katie, they screwed up royally replacing Vierra, and it has cost them millions of dollars. The article also points out nicely that part of the problem was the transition to Comcast, who had put in charge someone in charge who did not know anything about producing television. Even so, given how important the show is to their bottom line, it is shocking NBC did not put more thought into replacing Vierra. Their big mistake was putting Curry in that chair in the first place - she clearly was not the right person for the job. Again, the article does a good job of describing how, once they made that initial mistake, the dominoes were in place to fall as they did. Having hired her they should have given her more of a real chance (for all of her weaknesses, it seems Curry really was always open to feedback and willing to try to get better), and giving that chance would almost certainly have been better than what they did, except, now it seems clear, NBC was panicked that if they did, they would have lost Lauer, probably to ABC (thus the Ryan Seacrest rumors). It certainly does make sense that, perceiving themselves forced to choose between Lauer and Curry, they would go with Lauer, except doing that ultimately cut Lauer's likability (or whatever it is that the Q rating measures) in more than half, suddenly making the record $25M/year they spent on his contract seem excessive. And perhaps this even contributes to NBC's decision to cut Leno's salary, to try to make back some of that cash? One wonders if Zucker had not been promoted to and beyond the level of his incompetence, might he have been able to sit Lauer and Curry down and gotten them to at least try to work together for another year? Get Curry to do a intensely emotional interview with the virgin Lolo during the London Olympics, have Matt and Ann clown around endearingly with the Buckingham Palace guards, and maybe they would have all fallen in love with each other again. The story reinforces one of my life lessons, which is that once you have tried the smart thing and failed, you might as well do the right thing. Would NBC really be much worse off financially today if it had Conan hosting the Tonight (he made between $12M and $15M/year) and Ann Curry co-hosting Today? I think a good case can be made that Tonight's ratings would be about the same as they are now, with a younger average audience, and less fracture in the total late night universe, and their ratings would be better in the morning. -- -- 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 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
