Vieira to Head New Daytime Talk Show

[michael hagerty]

Plus, I doubt the other hosts would be all that happy to have Katie's hefty ABC salary sitting beside their measly ones.

I also suspect Katie's personality/ego/salary desired would be too high to just be a co-host. Plus Whoopi, as moderator, would have greater tenure there. If Whoopi was leaving also, then Katie could probably fill as lead co-host, moderator.

Guys, you're missing it. She takes the View gig and she's the new Barbara Walters. The deal would include primetime specials. She gets to erase the CBS Evening News and talk show failures because she (probably) can't sink The View.

Nobody's making chump change on that show. Everybody's getting 7 figures, except Barbara, who's north of 10 mil. They're used to Barbara being first among equals. Katie'll be 57...it gives her a show that's likely to run a while even if the specials tank. She plays her cards right, she gets 25 years out of it and retires at roughly the same age as Barbara.

Or, she could engineer a return to Today. Savannah's not setting the world on fire and Lauer's $25 mil a year probably looks good. But expect ABC to do whatever they can to keep that from happening.

 

[umfan]

I don't know about her returning to today. In Guthrie, they found someone who looks almost exactly like Katie did 15 years ago and is nearly as perky and, as you aptly note, it's not setting the world on fire.

No fault of Guthrie's, she's talented and doing what's asked of her, but tastes shift.

Not to mention, she'd want several orders of magnitude more money than Guthrie is getting with no guarantee that there would be additional revenue to cover it.

 

[michael hagerty]

I don't know about her returning to today. In Guthrie, they found someone who looks almost exactly like Katie did 15 years ago and is nearly as perky and, as you aptly note, it's not setting the world on fire.

No fault of Guthrie's, she's talented and doing what's asked of her, but tastes shift.

Not to mention, she'd want several orders of magnitude more money than Guthrie is getting with no guarantee that there would be additional revenue to cover it.

Morning shows are do-or-die. The money involved is astonishing. It's why $15 mil for Couric to anchor The CBS Evening News was a scandal but NBC happily (until things got bad) pays Matt Lauer $25 million to host Today.

NBC will do anything it can to get Today back to number 1. ABC will do anything it can to keep Good Morning America number 1.

What can NBC do? That's problematic. Morning teams are like family to viewers. It can take years to get anywhere with new faces, which is why the news anchor on the morning show often gets the hosting gig when it opens up...the audience already knows them. It's also why, when ABC didn't have the deep bench it needed, they turned to Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer...who, you could argue, put GMA in position to grab the ball if Today ever dropped it (there's no inherent magic in Stephanopoulos and Roberts other than that you're pretty sure they're not stabbing each other in the back).

If Katie Couric's agent is worth having, he's already talking with NBC about how their only shot at saving Lauer is Couric. But if Matt quits or gets canned before the end of Katie's talk show, skip it.

Plus, that's really leverage. Because it plays to ABC's desire to keep GMA number one. If they think there's a chance Couric could re-hab Lauer's image and push Today back into first place, even temporarily, it becomes worth their while to keep that from happening.

So, the girl who crashed and burned what Cronkite built and even Dan Rather couldn't destroy, whose talk show isn't living up to its pre-launch hype as an Oprah successor (or even a solid challenge to Ellen), and would likely be embarrassed in season 3 when Meredith Viera sucks all the air out of the room, suddenly has leverage for a sweetheart deal: Barbara Walters' place on The View, some primetime specials and very likely a nice, cushy run.

It costs ABC very little considering Walters is coming off the payroll, plays to Katie's strengths, and increases the odds that NBC will have to blow up Today and start over, having kept Lauer so long that they can't pull the Sawyer/Gibson trick (Gumbel? Brokaw? Pauley?). Probably they go for a Hail Mary pass with either Anderson Cooper or Ryan Seacrest, neither of whom is by any means a sure thing.

 

[justpassingthough]

Plus, I doubt the other hosts would be all that happy to have Katie's hefty ABC salary sitting beside their measly ones.

I also suspect Katie's personality/ego/salary desired would be too high to just be a co-host. Plus Whoopi, as moderator, would have greater tenure there. If Whoopi was leaving also, then Katie could probably fill as lead co-host, moderator.

I disagree- Barbara Walters did not see co-hosting a panel as "beneath" her and I imagine Katie Couric wouldn't think so either. She was at her best when she had co-hosts like Gumbel, Lauer and anchors like Ann Curry to bounce her personality off of. If anything, she has floundered since going solo, as neither her stint at CBS or her daytime talk show have set the world on fire. Walters has been sitting on the same stage with former no names like Debbie Mattenpoulis and Elizabeth Hasselbeck for nearly 20 years, and Couric would be lucky to be given the opportunity to carry on the torch for Walters.

Without the View, Couric becomes an also ran in the world of television. She starts to look more like Deborah Norville and less like Walters. This is the best solution for continuing her career (save for maybe returning to Today, but even that looks a little desperate on her part).

 

[michael hagerty]

Plus, I doubt the other hosts would be all that happy to have Katie's hefty ABC salary sitting beside their measly ones.

I also suspect Katie's personality/ego/salary desired would be too high to just be a co-host. Plus Whoopi, as moderator, would have greater tenure there. If Whoopi was leaving also, then Katie could probably fill as lead co-host, moderator.

I disagree- Barbara Walters did not see co-hosting a panel as "beneath" her and I imagine Katie Couric wouldn't think so either. She was at her best when she had co-hosts like Gumbel, Lauer and anchors like Ann Curry to bounce her personality off of. If anything, she has floundered since going solo, as neither her stint at CBS or her daytime talk show have set the world on fire. Walters has been sitting on the same stage with former no names like Debbie Mattenpoulis and Elizabeth Hasselbeck for nearly 20 years, and Couric would be lucky to be given the opportunity to carry on the torch for Walters.

Without the View, Couric becomes an also ran in the world of television. She starts to look more like Deborah Norville and less like Walters. This is the best solution for continuing her career (save for maybe returning to Today, but even that looks a little desperate on her part).

Bingo.

The View is the prize. Today, even if it worked, would only last a few years before NBC decided they needed someone younger. The View has demonstrated, with Walters and Behar that you can be in your 60s, 70s and even 80s and be on that show.

 

[radiophiler]

All reports regarding Katie's current show is she hates when she has to do softer topics.

The View doesn't sound like a good fit for her, if those reports are true.

A more likely scenario, perhaps: Diane Sawyer is getting up there in years. It appears George Stephanopoulos is the heir apparent for the ABC World News.

George takes World News, Katie becomes new co-host of Good Morning America. Only problem: Does her personality fit in with the tight-knit group that is already there?

Without some place like GMA for Katie to land at ABC, and also discounting the idea that she becomes a host on the View, I can't think of much else for ABC to do with her. Maybe her own prime time news magazine?

CNN might be interested in her, too. She'd fit right in with what Zucker wants there: news light.

 

[michael hagerty]

All reports regarding Katie's current show is she hates when she has to do softer topics.

The View doesn't sound like a good fit for her, if those reports are true.

A more likely scenario, perhaps: Diane Sawyer is getting up there in years. It appears George Stephanopoulos is the heir apparent for the ABC World News.

George takes World News, Katie becomes new co-host of Good Morning America. Only problem: Does her personality fit in with the tight-knit group that is already there?

Without some place like GMA for Katie to land at ABC, and also discounting the idea that she becomes a host on the View, I can't think of much else for ABC to do with her. Maybe her own prime time news magazine?

CNN might be interested in her, too. She'd fit right in with what Zucker wants there: news light.

If Katie really hated light stuff, she wouldn't have lasted at Today.

GMA's possible, but I'm not sure she's a good fit with Robin.

What I'm reading in the trades is biggest problem she has with the talk show is she wants it to be current-news driven...but it can't be because it's in reruns a chunk of the year.

"The View" has fewer repeats, so it can be more topical, gives her people to bounce off and she'd be the queen (replacing Walters) but without having the entire weight of the show's success or failure rest on her.

And the money.

Newsmagazines have been running out of steam for years. "Rock Center" is a good example.

CNN is certainly possible, with Zucker at the helm. But it's not going to pay like "The View", and the odds of getting more than a 5 or 10 year run out of it (CNN tends to get desparate everytime the ratings get bad, and they're rarely very good) would be pretty slim.

 

[justpassingthough]

All reports regarding Katie's current show is she hates when she has to do softer topics.

The View doesn't sound like a good fit for her, if those reports are true.

A more likely scenario, perhaps: Diane Sawyer is getting up there in years. It appears George Stephanopoulos is the heir apparent for the ABC World News.

George takes World News, Katie becomes new co-host of Good Morning America. Only problem: Does her personality fit in with the tight-knit group that is already there?

Without some place like GMA for Katie to land at ABC, and also discounting the idea that she becomes a host on the View, I can't think of much else for ABC to do with her. Maybe her own prime time news magazine?

CNN might be interested in her, too. She'd fit right in with what Zucker wants there: news light.

Granted, I don't watch any of these shows on a daily basis, but I always saw "the View" as falling somewhere between the fluff of the daytime talkers and the "seriousness" of the morning news programs. At the end of the day, Couric had one shot at doing a serious journalistic endeavour with the evening news, and it didn't pay off. Whether its the morning show or "the View" or a daytime talker, a significant portion of the program is fluff- human interest and what not. I'd actually say "the View" is closest to news light out of all of these options. Going back to the Rosie days, "the View" tends to be caustic from a political standpoint. When was the last time you heard "Today" or "Ricki Lake" or "Katie" get that kind of attention? They don't.

"The View" is the best option for Couric to do news light- will still remaining a likeable figure. That is her brand.

 

[ding12]

I disagree- Barbara Walters did not see co-hosting a panel as "beneath" her and I imagine Katie Couric wouldn't think so either.

Walters was/is their boss on The View, and she created the show.

I'm leaning towards Katie on 'The View' might be possible. ABC might want to keep her to prevent her going back to Today as mentioned, and it's probably her best career option except for hosting Today. But, I'd see it where she takes the lead moderator role on 'The View', first person speaking at the top of the hour and camera on her first, and Whoopi gets Joy's chair.

Logistically, I think daytime 'Katie' would wrap up in March next year, Katie would co-host GMA when Robin's on vacation in the summer for a bit, and this would promote her back with the network.