The dumping of Curry in favor
of Savannah Guthrie on the “Today” show has not been a success. So NBC
announced late Tuesday that the guy in charge of the show, Jim Bell, has been
named executive producer of NBCUniversal’s Olympics coverage full time.
NBC is expected to announce
that Bell is being replaced on “Today” — by an actual woman, which would be a
“Today” show first.
The odds-on favorite within
the industry is Alexandra Wallace, a senior VP of NBC News. The New York Times
reported late Monday that she is expected to take the job.
In Tuesday’s announcement, NBC
noted that Bell rejoins NBC Sports Group after seven years of leading “Today,”
the program that dominated the morning infotainment show race for 16 years —
until ABC’s “Good Morning America” blasted it out of the top spot in early
April.
NBC also noted that Bell
served as both executive producer of “Today” and of NBC’s coverage of the
London Olympics last summer.
It had been a given among The
Reporters Who Cover Television that Bell was toast, given the “Today” show’s
continued ratings problems, Curry’s botched exit and the general
uncomfortable-making dynamic among its on-air talent during its first two
hours.
Names of possible Bell
replacements have been floating about for weeks.
It’s the probable selection of
a woman that’s making news. Wallace has experience in the day part, having
produced the weekend edition of “Today” before moving over to the night side,
where she exec-produced “NBC Nightly News.” She then took over the news
division’s prime-time head-scratcher, “Rock Center With Brian Williams.”
A couple of months ago, Bell
said that it was his decision to show Curry the door — and not the decision of
her longtime co-anchor Matt Lauer, who took most of the blame in the court of
public opinion. At that time, Bell indicated that Curry’s year in the co-anchor
chair was sufficient to determine she was not a good fit.
But Curry’s teary on-air exit
from the show did not sit well with viewers, and the pairing of Lauer with
Guthrie has done nothing to wipe that bad image from memory.
Curry got the hook in June
because the show was already in ratings trouble, and ABC’s “Good Morning
America” was taking over as the new morning infotainment front-runner.
But her departure didn’t fix
the problem. “GMA” continued to rank No. 1 in the ratings derby during 11 of 13
weeks between late June and the start of the official TV season in September,
with “Today” beating “GMA” only during the two weeks in the summer when it
broadcast from the London Games.
Six weeks into the current TV
season, “Today” continues to trail “GMA” among all viewers, and has lost five
of the past six weeks among 25-to-54-year-old viewers who are the currency of
news programming.
In the most recent week for
which ratings are available, “Today” edged “GMA” in that age bracket by 8,000
viewers.
Elmo accuser recants
The man who claimed he had a
sexual relationship with longtime “Sesame Street” puppeteer Kevin Clash while
underage has recanted one day after the story broke in the media.
“I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest. I
will not discuss it further,” Clash, the puppeteer and voice of of “Sesame
Street’s” Elmo for nearly three decades, said in a statement.
Earlier, the law firm that
purports to represent the accuser said in a statement that the man withdrew his
claim and acknowledged that “his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an
adult consensual relationship.”
On Monday, Sesame Workshop
said that it had met with the accuser after it first received a communication
from the then-23-year-old man in June. Sesame Workshop said that it also met
with Clash and that after a “thorough investigation . . . found the allegation
of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated.”
The production company also
said that it had put Clash on leave while he took steps “to protect his
reputation.”
The law firm representing the
accuser had claimed that Sesame Workshop placed “greater value on a puppet than
the well-being of a young man,” according to TMZ, which first reported the
story Monday.
“We are pleased that this matter has been brought to a close, and we
are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode,” the Sesame
Workshop said Tuesday.
Sara Ganim to CNN
CNN rebounded nicely from
Monday’s devastating news that it had lost hunky weatherman Rob Marciano to
“Entertainment Tonight,” announcing Tuesday that it has hired Sara Ganim as a
correspondent based in Atlanta.
Ganim, who joins CNN from the
Patriot News in Harrisburg, Pa., broke the story of the grand jury
investigation into Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State University football
defensive coordinator who was found guilty of child sex abuse.
The Sandusky case enveloped
the university, including its late football coach Joe Paterno, and Sandusky’s
Second Mile Charity in scandal. Ganim won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting.
And you’ve already seen her on
CNN and HLN as on-air contributor during those networks’ coverage of Sandusky’s
trial and conviction.
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