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Call to Cooper of CNN Hints at a Shift for ‘Today’

March 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

NBC’s succession planning at both ends of its weekday schedule is causing no small amount of heartburn within the corridors of Rockefeller Center. It is playing out in public view, enveloping two of the most illustrious shows on television, “Today” and “The Tonight Show,” and two of the most successful men who have hosted those shows.

In Mr. Lauer’s case, the rumored successor on Wednesday was Anderson Cooper, the biggest star on CNN. Reports of a phone call from an NBC executive to size up Mr. Cooper’s interest in co-hosting “Today” renewed speculation about Mr. Lauer’s future on the show. NBC tried to quell it by saying, in a blunt statement, “We are not considering replacing Matt Lauer.”

The network’s plans for “The Tonight Show” are, by all accounts, further along. With Mr. Leno’s contract coming due in the fall of 2014, NBC has chosen Jimmy Fallon to be his successor. Though a deal is not yet done, Mr. Fallon is expected to take over “Tonight” that fall, if not earlier.

The plans for “Today” remain murky. Mr. Lauer, a star of the show for the better part of two decades, signed a contract last year — believed to pay him $25 million a year — that keeps him at NBC at least through the end of 2014. But the perception that Mr. Lauer forced his co-host Ann Curry from her job last year has badly damaged his reputation. Within the network, his current contract is widely considered to be his last, so there is clearly some succession planning to do.

The nature of the call to Mr. Cooper, however, raised the possibility that NBC might remove Mr. Lauer before his contract expires, or that Mr. Lauer might ask to be replaced. The inquiry, as reported by Deadline.com on Tuesday night, was about whether Mr. Cooper would consider joining “Today” later this year. His contract at CNN expires this fall, and other networks have expressed interest in hiring him.

Three people in the tight-knit television business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the outreach was considered confidential, confirmed that the call was made this month. But executives at NBC, while tacitly confirming their interest in Mr. Cooper, strenuously denied that they saw him as a short-term fix to the problems that have plagued “Today,” which fell to second place in the ratings last year after 16 years at No. 1.

A news division executive, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity, said in a statement, “NBC News has many exploratory talks with talent inside and outside of the network, but to read anything specific into that is presumptuous.”

The same person also said, “We are confident in our anchor team and are focused on producing great morning TV.”

Mr. Lauer still has millions of fans, just as Mr. Leno does at night. But that has not stopped high-ranking NBC executives from wondering aloud whether they should make a change at “Today” before Mr. Lauer’s contract expires. The new co-host of the 9 a.m. hour of “Today,” Willie Geist, and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” David Gregory, are mentioned most often as possible successors.

Ryan Seacrest, the “American Idol” host and a radio D.J., was discussed a year ago as a possible replacement, but his name comes up less frequently these days.

That the names are mentioned at all is a challenge for the network going forward. While NBC News executives say they have resisted the lighter fare and tabloid style of their rival, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the “Today” show itself risks becoming tabloid fodder.

In the wake of the Deadline.com report, TMZ.com reported that its sources had said that “Lauer is actually on board with the idea of Anderson replacing him,” and that he “planned to have a meeting with Anderson to sit down and discuss it.”

A spokeswoman for “Today” who represents Mr. Lauer declined to comment.

It is unclear who at NBC or its parent company, Comcast, made the call to Mr. Cooper. The news division does not currently have a president. Patricia Fili-Krushel, the chairwoman of NBCUniversal News Group, who oversees the news division, previously worked at Time Warner, the parent of CNN, for nearly a decade.

In some ways, Mr. Cooper would be a logical choice for “Today”: he is in his mid-40s and has demonstrated that he can juggle hard news interviews with the fun and games that morning television shows serve up.

His presence on “Today” might spur former viewers to give the show another chance. “Today” has fallen about 20 percent in the ratings since Ms. Curry was removed as a co-host next to Mr. Lauer last summer.

Co-hosting “Today” would, however, be a drastic lifestyle change for Mr. Cooper, who is “not a morning person,” one friend said, and is used to hosting a prime-time newscast. “Anderson Cooper 360,” his nightly hour on CNN, is shown live at 8 p.m. and replayed at 10 p.m.

While “360” is one of CNN’s highest-rated programs, it has struggled in the ratings: it currently attracts fewer than one million viewers at 8 p.m.

Furthermore, Mr. Cooper’s shot at a daytime talk show in the fall of 2011 has been viewed as a disappointment. It was renewed for a second season but canceled last October, only one month into that season.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cooper at CNN declined to comment. When his CNN contract ends, another option besides “Today” is an expanded role on the weekly CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes.”

He currently contributes a few stories to the newsmagazine each year. His CNN contract prohibits him from doing more, and CBS executives would jump at the chance to change that.

Mr. Cooper may opt to stay at CNN, however, given that it provides him a daily presence on television.

“Today” would provide the same thing, and a much bigger audience. But Mr. Cooper may be leery of appearing to force out Mr. Lauer.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/business/media/nbc-is-said-to-offer-lauers-job-to-cooper.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Media Decoder: News Outlets Take to Washington for Inauguration Coverage

January 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, left, and Anderson Cooper will report from positions along the parade route on Monday.John Nowak/CNN CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, left, and Anderson Cooper will report from positions along the parade route on Monday.

If he squints hard enough, President Obama will be able to see CNN from his perch on the inaugural podium on Monday.

The cable news channel has set up an elaborate studio on the National Mall — one of the four locations where its anchors will be leading coverage of Mr. Obama’s second inaugural celebration.

“The goal is to put our anchors in the middle of all the activity,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. So in the morning, Wolf Blitzer will start out by the Capitol building and Anderson Cooper by the Mall, moving to new spots along the parade route in the afternoon. Other anchors will be at the inaugural balls at night.

The coverage might seem more subdued on other major television networks, reflecting the fact that there is generally less enthusiasm for presidential inaugurations the second time around. Still, the ceremony and the spectacle that accompanies it will take over the networks and news channels beginning with their morning shows, some of which are relocating to Washington for the day.

CBS has built a studio on the Mall beside CNN’s. Its one-year-old morning show, “CBS This Morning,” will be broadcast from there and expand to three hours for the day. NBC’s “Today” show will have all of its hosts in Washington, as well.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” is doing it a bit differently, sending George Stephanopoulos and Josh Elliott to Washington and having the show’s other hosts stay in New York.

The bulk of the festivities will be anchored by the same correspondents who handled election night for their networks. There has been a last-minute change at PBS, though: Judy Woodruff is away from Washington because of a family illness, a spokeswoman said, so the senior correspondent Jeffrey Brown will anchor with Gwen Ifill, instead.

Most Americans will watch the inauguration on television, just as they did in 2009, the first time Mr. Obama was inaugurated. But there will also be a panoply of Web sites live-streaming the event, including that of the Presidential Inauguration Committee.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/to-usher-in-second-term-news-outlets-go-to-capital/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Anderson Cooper Seeks to Show his Daytime Side

September 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This week, he will spend an hour talking to Snooki about her tan.

That will not be on CNN, of course, home of his nightly hard news program, “Anderson Cooper 360.” Instead, it will be on local television stations across the country, where Mr. Cooper will begin his moonlighting job on Monday as host of a syndicated daytime talk hour, “Anderson.”

Beyond Snooki, Mr. Cooper’s first-week lineup includes an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker about her new movie, a chat with the cast of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” in the wake of the suicide of one of the husbands, and, in his opening episode on Monday, an interview with the family of the recently deceased pop singer Amy Winehouse.

These topics are not likely to be addressed on his CNN program, and that is one of the reasons Mr. Cooper wanted to expand into daytime talk. “Everybody has different sides to them,” he said in an interview by phone. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to work different jobs that show different sides of you.”

Some traditionalists may see a risk for Mr. Cooper’s news reputation in diverting himself into the more superficial fields of daytime talk. Judy Muller, who spent much of her career as a news correspondent for ABC news, and now is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, said that assessment might be expected from “an old-school reporter like me.”

Ms. Muller’s view, though, is more nuanced. “There is no doubt that Anderson Cooper has established his serious credentials. That said, there is always a risk when you move into more light-hearted venues of the likes of Snooki.”

But Mr. Cooper, she said, “is a different kind of journalist, one for the future. He is transparently who he is.”

Mr. Cooper is introducing his daytime side — he said he has been a longtime viewer of the genre — in the first week of the post-Oprah era. He enters as one of the great hopes to inherit the audience Ms. Winfrey leaves behind.

“We have high expectations,” said Hilary Estey McLoughlin, the president of Telepictures, the syndicator of Mr. Cooper’s foray into daytime talk. She said that the show can be seen by 99 percent of country. (In New York it will be seen on WPIX.)

Only about eight of the stations will be ones where Ms. Winfrey’s show used to reside, a total dwarfed by the “Dr. Oz” show, which grabbed 80 of those slots. Still, Ms. McLoughlin highlighted Mr. Cooper’s appeal as a lead-in show to local news.

That afternoon position is hotly pursued by many daytime talk show contenders. Mr. Cooper said his show would be evenly divided between openings in the morning and the afternoon. But syndicated shows that succeed often start out in the mornings and gravitate to the afternoons.

The financial riches that Ms. Winfrey reached during her long syndicated run may be impossible to attain, because syndicated shows face the same ratings erosion that afflicts broadcast entertainment programs. Daytime talk shows, however, still have the capability to reach three million to four million viewers a day and remain, in the words of Michael Nathanson, the United States media analyst for Nomura, “a significant moneymaker.”

Mr. Nathanson said the costs for daytime talk shows remained so low — many at less than $1 million a week (Mr. Nathanson estimated the first year costs for “Anderson” at $25 million to $28 million) — that anything resembling a hit could generate tens of millions in revenue or more a year. Hosts often become quite wealthy, though that, Mr. Nathanson said, may be less an incentive for Mr. Cooper, a descendant of the Vanderbilt family.

Mr. Cooper‘s deal with CNN pays him about $10 million a year. He has an undisclosed ownership interest in the talk show, one that could pay him far more if it becomes a long-running success.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=62b4bf4ec161153199dd9c02c914c2c8

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Media Decoder: CNN Cancels Eliot Spitzer’s Show

July 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

1:42 p.m. | Updated CNN on Wednesday cancelled Eliot Spitzer’s 8 p.m. political talk show, “In The Arena,” after only nine months, and said it would shift Anderson Cooper’s 10 p.m. nightly newscast into the time slot.

CNN on Wednesday cancelled Eliot Spitzer’s 8 p.m. political talk show.Art Streiber/CNNCNN on Wednesday cancelled Eliot Spitzer’s 8 p.m. political talk show.

The cable news channel also said that Erin Burnett, a new hire from CNBC, would take over the 7 p.m. time slot on weekdays, replacing John King, who will move to 6 p.m. “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” which currently runs from 5 to 7 p.m., will move to 4 to 6 p.m.

The shake-up is intended to stabilize CNN’s television ratings and create better transitions between shows. The only prime time show that is unaffected is “Piers Morgan Tonight,” the 9 p.m. interview show that was introduced six months ago.

Once Mr. Cooper’s newscast shifts to 8 p.m., it will be rebroadcast at 10 p.m., deepening the channel’s dependence on him.

For Mr. Spitzer, who has tried to rehabilitate his public image since resigning the New York governorship in disgrace three years ago, the cancellation of “In The Arena” is a setback. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but in a statement provided by CNN, he expressed pride in his show.

“We engaged serious people in conversations about national and global issues in a way that was informative and challenging,” he said in the statement. “I believe that we provided diverse and valuable perspectives during the show’s tenure.”

The executive in charge of CNN/U.S., Ken Jautz, said in an internal memorandum that the channel is currently “in discussions with Eliot Spitzer about an alternative role.” But Mr. Spitzer’s own statement cast doubt on that possibility; it concluded by saying, “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at CNN.”

Mr. Spitzer was hired last summer by Mr. Jautz’s predecessor Jonathan Klein, who was dismissed weeks before the resulting show, “Parker Spitzer,” had its premiere. The show was plagued by poor ratings, prompting the exit of his co-host, Kathleen Parker, in February.

The changes at CNN will begin to take effect on Aug. 8, when Mr. Cooper’s show moves to 8. Then, on Sept. 19, Mr. Blitzer’s newscast will move to 4 and Mr. King’s will move to 6. Sometime in late September, Ms. Burnett’s still-untitled news show will be introduced at 7 p.m., with a rebroadcast at 11 p.m.

Mr. Jautz said in the internal memorandum that the new schedule “further differentiates and distinguishes CNN.”

“This line-up emphasizes our focus on quality journalism and on hosts who are proven reporters, as well as on shows that successfully combine original reporting with news analysis, civil debate and a wide range of inclusive and differing opinions,” he said.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f28173b62b3b09a1052c3d93e6c24c75

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