Word: nbc
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Barely a year ago, Jane Pauley was a second-string newsreader for a local TV station in Indianapolis. This week she goes on the air as the favored finalist in network television's most comprehensive talent hunt-well, since NBC went looking for a man to co-host the Today show with Barbara Walters in 1974. This time, the network is hunting for someone to replace Walters, who next month starts her $1 million-a-year job on ABC's Evening News...
...sunrise sweepstakes began last May after Walters announced her change of venue. NBC Vice Presidents Richard Fischer and Robert Mulholland screened some 150 tapes of local and network newswomen. Since July a dozen candidates have been brought to New York for interviews or live auditions, and three have reached the finals: Pauley, 25, who anchors the 5 o'clock news on NBC's Chicago affiliate; Consumer Expert Betty Furness, 60, who took the job provisionally when Walters left and completed her tryout last Friday; and Cassie Mackin, 38, a crack NBC Washington correspondent. After Mackin's final...
Second Fiddle. In fact, NBC already has a successor to Walters, Tom Brokaw, 36, who took over last week as prime host of Today after three years on the White House beat. His new leading lady, whoever she turns out to be, will play second fiddle. "The uneasy alliance between our co-hosts did not help the show," says Today's new executive producer, Paul Friedman, 31. "We're getting back to a single person in charge...
Today, which since 1952 has been a gusher for NBC (annual revenues: as high as $22 million), is already in trouble. The show's audience is down 31% from 1973. Even so, Today still has twice the audience of either the sobersides CBS Morning News or ABC's fluffy Good Morning, America. But the ABC program, co-hosted by actors and spiced with gossip, has been stealing Today viewers, particularly younger ones. Today's new spontaneity is designed to win them back. Consequently, NBC'S search could end with Pauley. The honey-blonde from Indianapolis...
...verdict, however, rests with Dick Wald, NBC Chairman Julian Goodman and President Herbert Schlosser, and that jury is still out. "If Miss 'X' walks in tomorrow, we might consider her," cautions an NBC executive. Quite so. During the 1974 talent hunt, Brokaw was the odds-on favorite, followed by other household names. The winner that time: Jim Hartz, almost-no one's first choice...