Word: gumbel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Costas' commitment to Later (and to remaining in St. Louis) is striking. When the Today show was still reeling from the Deborah Norville fiasco and Gumbel was haggling over his contract, NBC executives reportedly let Costas know that the hosting slot was his for the asking. He wasn't interested. He hopes to develop prime-time specials based on Later, and he is also toying with the idea of creating a 60 Minutes-type show about sports. However, such is his devotion to baseball that despite his estimated $2 million-a-year salary, he has just about decided to leave...
...apply to Zucker these days. Try upbeat. After three years of soap-opera travails and ratings woes, NBC's morning show has almost miraculously righted itself. Katie Couric, who became co-anchor a year ago, has managed to make people forget the short, unhappy tenure of Deborah Norville. Bryant Gumbel, the show's sometimes testy on-air leader for the past decade, is smiling more. And the audience is filing back into the auditorium. Though Good Morning America retains a narrow lead in the ratings, Today scored a weekly win last month for the first time in more than...
Once the Olympics were over, Zucker landed a producing job on Today. His arrival coincided almost precisely with the start of the morning show's much publicized problems. First was the infamous Gumbel memo, in which the anchor made disparaging remarks about some of his colleagues, notably weatherman Willard Scott. Then came the departure of longtime co-anchor Jane Pauley and her replacement by Norville, the brittle blond who alienated both viewers and staff members. Today slipped from No. 1 to second in the ratings; morale sank just as fast. "This place went through hell," says Zucker. "We can acknowledge...
...anchor when Norville went on maternity leave in February 1991 and was given the job permanently a month later. Couric's unaffected, girl-next-door likability has helped calm down TV's most volatile family circle. Zucker takes care to parcel out praise evenly, defending the often abrasive Gumbel. "Bryant is very opinionated," he says. "That's his greatest strength, and it hurts him too. But you'd be hard- pressed to find a better interviewer on TV." Still, he admits, "Katie has reinvigorated the whole show -- including Bryant...
...after shaking hands with Bryant Gumbel and Charles Gibson, Tsongas later in the day met a slightly different television personality: David Letterman...