JOIN THE "TODAY" SHOW FAMILY AND FRIENDS AS THEY SAY FAREWELL TO CO-ANCHOR KATIE COURIC ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 3
NEW YORK - May 24, 2006 - Katie Couric has spent 15 years waking
America up in the morning, telling them what they needed to know to
start their days and revolutionizing the morning show landscape, making
"Today" the number one show in America for more than an unprecedented
10 years. On Wednesday, May 31 (7-10AM) America will get to say thank
you and farewell during a very special broadcast of "Today," Couric's
final show.
Couric has mastered the morning show routine during her decade and a
half at NBC, from hard-hitting interviews with top newsmakers to
crucial health information to the latest pop culture buzz. She's
covered the biggest stories of the past 15 years, including the 9/11
attacks, the first Gulf War, Columbine, Hurricane Katrina, the O.J.
Simpson murder trial and the 50th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy.
Couric has also interviewed almost everyone who's made headlines over
the past 15 years. She's sat down with four Presidents, including Bill
Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and scores of
world leaders, from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to then-Iraqi deputy Prime Minister Tariq
Aziz to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Couric has also charmed celebrities galore, including Bill Cosby, Meryl
Streep, George Clooney, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Julie
Andrews, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen and Gwyneth Paltrow. But, she
says that some of her proudest work has come talking to ordinary people
who did extraordinary things.
Couric has traveled around the world for "Today" over the past 15
years, including Africa, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Ireland, France and
Cuba. And she's covered six Olympic Games, including Torino, Athens,
Salt Lake City, Sydney, Atlanta and Barcelona.
Her farewell show will consist of a look back on Couric's tenure on
"Today" - the most notable interviews, the most memorable moments and
of course, the most talked about hair-do's. Viewers will learn about
her favorite moment, and her most embarrassing one. Couric will also
talk about her proudest accomplishment, when her live colonoscopy
resulted in a 20 percent increase in testing for colon cancer and
kicked off her invaluable and indefatigable activism for awareness of
the disease.
The broadcast will showcase very special appearances by "Today" friends
and family who will stop by to say "goodbye" to Couric, including
special performances by Tony Bennett, Martina McBride, Idina Menzel and
Megan Hilty from the Broadway musical "Wicked," and the cast of the
Broadway musical "Jersey Boys."
The show will air select video goodbyes from "Today" viewers who can't
be there on the plaza on the 31st, and Couric will get to meet the
winner of her biggest fan contest.
It's certain to be one of the most memorable moments in "Today" history
when Couric says goodbye to the viewers and her television family, Matt
Lauer, Al Roker and Ann Curry, for the final time.
Jim Bell is the executive producer of "Today" (Monday-Friday, 7-10 a.m.).
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http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-katiecourictodayalmostyesterday,0,1910464.story
'Today' Is Almost Yesterday for Katie Couric
By Jay Bobbin, Zap2it
May 23 2006
With all that's being written and said about her these days, the person noticing it the least may be Katie Couric herself.
Stories about her impending move from NBC's "Today" to the "CBS Evening
News" anchor desk have been constant since the announcement was made
last month. In her final weeks of the role she has had since 1991 as
"Today" co-anchor, Couric maintains her mind remains on the business
still at hand.
"I have a busy life with two kids and a very demanding job," she says
in her first on-the-record interview since announcing her network
switch. "I'm not sure (the job switch is) worthy of the space it has
taken in various publications. I just describe it as 'a cacophony of
opiners,' and while they obviously all have things to say and the
freedom to say them, I really just haven't paid too much attention. I
want to focus on continuing to do a good job here; I've got a lot of
work. It's not as if I have time to 'Google' myself everyday ... nor
the inclination, to be honest."
Keeping focused on "Today" until her departure on Wednesday, May
31, is "my responsibility here, first and foremost," Couric maintains.
"I really try to give every interview 110 percent, and I always have.
It's just not in my nature to coast, so I've really tried to continue
to do a good job here, and to give input on stories I think would be
good."
Looking back on the April morning she told "Today" viewers of her
decision, Couric recalls, "It was a nervewracking day, but because I
felt so confident about my decision, I wasn't completely undone. I felt
that I was doing the right thing, and I also knew it had been the
subject of so much speculation for so long, it was anticlimactic in a
way.
"It was very important to me personally to share my decision directly
with people who watched me, for them to hear it from me. I didn't want
them to learn definitively of my decision from reading about it. I
remember sitting down and writing out what I was going to say, and I
didn't really change it. It was my very honest, sincere feeling."
Couric adds most "Today" staff members had a notion of what was coming,
"even those people I couldn't talk to directly. People in my business
love to 'communicate,' but there was a sense that I was considering
moving on. It was a really big, sad day, and I remember I didn't sleep
very well the night before.
"Coming back after my husband (attorney Jay Monahan) died was much more
difficult for me, though, talking about that to millions of people.
This was hard, but it wasn't the hardest thing I've had to do on the
show."
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http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/cotown/la-wk-couric18may18,1,6368804.story?coll=la-headlines-business-enter
Couric helps out CBS
The network's incoming anchor breaks NBC's no-publicity deal.
By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2006
THE network upfronts are known for their stunts and surprises, and CBS
managed to pull off one particularly unexpected appearance Wednesday
during its presentation at Carnegie Hall.
About
half an hour into the show, soon-to-be CBS News anchor Katie Couric
came out to greet the crowd of advertisers, two weeks before her
15-year run at NBC's "Today" concludes.
Couric was introduced by CBS Corp. President Leslie Moonves and came out on
stage to applause and some whistles. In brief remarks, Couric said she
was "thrilled to be joining a remarkable team of journalists," adding
that "when it comes to intelligence, commitment and integrity, they are
top-notch."
She
thanked outgoing anchor Bob Schieffer for his support and said that she
hoped to "develop a broadcast that is relevant, accessible, compelling
and human." After a gratifying career at NBC, Couric added that she was
"so honored CBS is giving me the opportunity to give this my best shot."
While
some in the audience may not have been surprised to see CBS trotting
out its arguably biggest new star of next season, Couric wasn't
originally going to make an appearance at the upfront out of deference
to her current employer.
Earlier in the year, when it was clear
the longtime "Today" co-anchor was itching for a new challenge, NBC
officials agreed to let her begin negotiations early with CBS as long
as she did not do publicity for her new job until after her contract at
NBC ends on May 31.
Extracting that agreement proved to be a
particularly deft move by NBC. In April, Couric announced on "Today"
that she was leaving the show to become the next anchor of the "CBS
Evening News" — her only public statement so far about the move.
NBC
followed her announcement with its own the next day when officials
broke the news that Meredith Vieira of ABC's "The View" would be
replacing Couric at "Today." (ABC didn't seem to mind letting Vieira
make an appearance at NBC headquarters that day to discuss her new
role, or being spotlighted at NBC's upfront earlier this week.)
Meanwhile,
CBS officials were privately irked that they weren't going to get to
show off Couric at the network's presentation, especially since she's
just two weeks away from becoming a CBS employee.
Moonves
joked with reporters Wednesday morning that he offered to let Julie
Chen, "The Early Show" co-anchor — and Moonves' wife — attend the NBC
upfront in exchange, "but they rejected that."
The situation
created a dilemma for Couric, who, grateful for NBC's graciousness
about her decision to move on, has sought to balance the competing
interests of her current and future employers. Ultimately, she
concluded she should be at the CBS upfront and told NBC officials in a
note earlier this week.
"Katie thought it would be odd to not
make a brief appearance," said her spokesman, Matthew Hiltzik. "NBC was
informed of her intentions, and she did not receive any objection."
NBC officials declined to comment, but indicated that the move raised some eyebrows.
"The
feeling on this end was a little surprise that she would go ahead and
do it," said one executive who did not want to be named to avoid
exacerbating the matter. "But no one is going to lose sleep over it."
-------------------------
NPR host knows what Couric faces in new job
(Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
May 14--Susan Stamberg had a few choice words for Katie Couric.
As the first woman to anchor the national nightly news (on National
Public Radio), Stamberg offered 10 suggestions to the first woman
selected to anchor the national nightly news, solo, for a major TV
network.
"I used to eat a steak-andcheese sandwich every day,"
said Stamberg, who will speak tonight at Ohio State University. "But on
my first day as an anchorwoman, I couldn't eat lunch. So my advice (to
Couric) was: Eat lunch."
In 1972, Stamberg began a 14-year run as co-host of the NPR show All Things Considered.
More recently, as a guest host of Morning Edition and Weekend Edition
Saturday as well as a reporter on cultural issues for all NPR shows,
she cast an amused eye on the hubbub surrounding the appointment of an
anchorwoman for the CBS evening newscast.
Couric, to start the
job in September, will have a far different organization supporting her
at CBS from the one Stamberg had at NPR.
"We had five reporters
and 90 minutes," she said. "Now there are 100 or so reporters. If I was
still the anchor of that program, it might lighten the job in a way.
The resources are so much broader."
Years ago, with so much
time to fill, she joined her colleagues in delivering intricate,
analytical stories -- which earned praise from other newscasters,
including Walter Cronkite.
"We're covering breaking news more
now as opposed to analysis," said Stamberg, 67. "That's partly a
function of what has happened here at NPR and in the country, as we
become a primary source of news.
"It's a loss in a way. We
still do it (analysis), but it's not all we do, not the main thing.
That makes everybody's job tougher here.
"Someone said we're becoming CNN with a Ph.D. We have to be careful not to be that."
Stamberg has managed to remain engaged in her work thanks to a free flow between the personal and the professional.
"You can really track the pattern of my life by what I happened to cover on the radio."
During her first years at NPR, for example, "Here I was, a new mother
-- Josh was 18 months old -- and I was doing a lot of child-care
stories.
"As I've grown older, I've done a lot on elder care --
taking care of my own mother; dealing with death, illness. It's been a
wonderful forum for an exploration of life."
One of her most
popular stories of the past year -- "Solving the Mystery of
Mother-Daughter Speak," which aired in January -- spoke to another
issue for many women.
"That thing stayed on our e-mail list for
weeks and weeks," she said, "because those relationships, no matter how
much we Google, still mystify us."
-----------------------
SEC's 'Katie Couric' salary clause draws fire
Fri May 12, 2006 10:00 AM ET
By Karey Wutkowski
WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) - Hollywood doesn't blink at paying top
dollar for the right actor in a movie deal, but a federal proposal for
media companies to reveal their stars' salaries has studios crying
"cut!"
CBS Corp. <CBSa.N>, Walt Disney Co. <DIS.N> and Viacom Inc.
<VIA.N> are among the media companies asking the Securities and
Exchange Commission to drop a proposal that would require them to tell
the world how much they pay their top-earning non-executives such as
actors and TV news anchors.
The entertainment industry is abuzz over the so-called "Katie Couric"
clause in a broad SEC plan for publicly traded companies to give
shareholders more information about multimillion-dollar salaries. The
designation comes from "Today" show co-host Couric, who is leaving NBC
at the end of May to join CBS as anchor and managing editor of "The CBS
Evening News With Katie Couric" for a reported salary of $15 million
over five years.
The SEC proposal -- aimed mainly at prying loose more information on
the pay of top corporate officers -- also would force companies to
disclose salary figures for up to three workers whose compensation
exceeds that of its top executives.
Companies protesting the SEC plan, which also include DreamWorks
Animation SKG Inc. <DWA.N>, and News Corp. <NWS.N>, insist
that the salary structure for high-paid talent is too complex and
irrelevant to shareholders. The new rule also might scare away
high-profile individuals who prefer to keep their financial terms
private, the companies say.
The SEC hopes to unveil a final version of its overall executive
compensation disclosure measure by early September, in time for
companies to begin following it in early 2007.
Whether the clause opposed by Hollywood remains in the measure is now being debated within the agency.
An SEC official acknowledged that the Katie Couric clause is a key point of contention in the SEC's wide-ranging proposal.
----------------------------
Dr. Katie to donate pricey call
When Katie Couric
delivers a commencement address, it's huge. There's a private jet to
whisk the future "CBS Evening News" anchor to Norman, Okla., for
tonight's pomp and circumstance at the University of Oklahoma, where
she'll pick up an honorary doctorate in humane letters.
Then there's her $115,000 speaking fee - which she plans to donate to a
University of Virginia cancer center in memory of her late sister Emily.
And then there's all the complicated planning involving which
television outlets get to cover what. I hear that C-SPAN - which
typically sends its cameras to notable orations during the graduation
season - was denied access to Couric's speech. "We would not deny
anything to anyone," a university spokeswoman told me yesterday. "Check
with Miss Couric's staff." Irony alert?
It turns out that Oklahoma stations will be permitted to broadcast
sound bites, but that Couric's contract with NBC - which ends in a
couple of weeks - restricts her appearances on non-NBC outlets. But,
after my inquiries, it looks like C-SPAN may end up showing the whole
speech after all.
Couric's PR rep acknowledged some "miscommunication," but added:
"Katie's excited about the speech. It's good to see that Lowdown is
getting in the spirit of the commencement season by demonstrating his
strong B.S. credentials."
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/417118p-352264c.html
