Word: gumbel
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...pressure valve is self-mocking humor, long an NBC staple. On his Late Night hour, David Letterman has provoked "feuds" with NBC stars Mr. T and Today's Bryant Gumbel. Among Letterman's supporting comedy cast is a silver- haired gent who purports to be one "Grant Tinker"; he recently celebrated NBC's No. 1 status by offering lunch money to habitues of the network commissary. The real Brandon Tartikoff, who has been host on Saturday Night Live, will play himself next week on a comedy special called Bob Hope Buys NBC?--a needling joke in itself, since...
...ratings' climb can be traced partly to the growing success of NBC's prime-time fare; according to a broadcasting maxim, some morning viewers watch whatever station they left the dial on the night before. The show has also profited from hitting the road. Pauley and Co-Host Bryant Gumbel broadcast the program live from Rome for a week in early April, then Gumbel traveled solo to Viet Nam to mark the tenth anniversary of the Communist takeover. In late May the Today stars and staff -- 47 people in all -- traveled 2,500 miles on a specially outfitted train through...
...their teamwork on the road proved, Gumbel and Pauley go together like bagels and cream cheese. Gumbel, who hosted NBC's professional football coverage before replacing Tom Brokaw on Today in 1982, has rapidly grown into an incisive interviewer adept at cutting through mushy answers. During an interview with Louisiana's slick Governor Edwin Edwards last month, for example, Gumbel kept sweeping away the politician's charming patter to discuss the impact of Edwards' recent indictment on conspiracy charges. For her part, Pauley displays a more empathetic style, laced with a self-deprecating wit, that works best when...
McGrady acknowledges that Gumbel and Pauley have improved as interviewers, but she feels the easygoing pace of Today is copied from GMA. "Some research person probably said to Today's producers that GMA is more relaxed and that people like that," says McGrady. Neither she nor Hartman plans any major tinkering with GMA's format. "We're not looking at Today's ratings and saying, 'Oh, good,' " Hartman admits. "But it doesn't worry me in the sense of 'Gracious, we have to hit the panic button. We've fallen apart.' We haven...
...live coverage was not so much propagandistic as it was unenlightening. Today's Gumbel, sitting in semidarkness and encircled by a cloud of bugs, spent much of his on-air time introducing taped segments. Koppel's interview with Tho illustrated the perils of live TV: the Vietnamese official was able to ramble on because Koppel was plagued by a faulty communications hookup and could not break into the harangue...