TVSquad

Much has been said about Katie Couric and her year behind the anchor's desk on The CBS Evening News (some of it by Couric herself in a controversial New York interview). But now a journalist is going to interview Couric and she's going to talk about everything that's going on with her and with the news biz in general.

Veteran newsman Marvin Kalb is going to interview Couric as part of the Kalb Report Series, which is produced by George Washington University, Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center, and The National Press Club. The interview will take place live on stage next Tuesday at The National Press Club, in front of students and members of the NPC.

• Do you remember the show Big Wave Dave's?
• Best Week Ever gives us The Reverse Savage.
• A lot of people want Tucker Carlson to be fired.
• More nasty news about Andy Dick.
• Singer Chris Brown takes his jacket off at The Today Show, causes a riot.
• Did you know Hugh Laurie was almost picked to host the Emmys?
• BuddyTV has some interesting info about the Jericho season one DVD set.

Are Today Show viewers - even the most loyal Today Show viewers - asking for a fourth hour of the show every single day?

Looks that way. As we reported earlier, NBC is going ahead with their plans for a fourth hour of the morning show, and Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that the hosts have been named: Ann Curry, Natalie Morales, and Hoda Kotb. Giada De Laurentis and Tiki Barber will be correspondents on the show.

I assume that NBC has done some sort of market research that pushes them in this direction, but as a viewer I'm kind of nauseated. Look at all that TV space that's being taken up by having four hours of Today on Monday through Friday (and another two hours each on Saturday and Sunday). Yikes.

[via TV Newser]

• So Bob Barker is gone from The Price Is Right. Check out the Best Week Ever tribute to the silver fox.
• ABC and CBS try to upstage Matt Lauer's interview with Princes Williams and Harry.
• Tim Goodman has some final (?) thoughts on that Sopranos ending.
• TV Guide has the winners list from The Daytime Emmy Awards.
• Forbes has its annual Celebrity 100 list. How can the "cast of Grey's Anatomy" be counted as one entry?
• Somehow, David Hasselhoff gets sole custody of his kids.
• trivialTV is a blog you should be reading.

NBC says the fireworks display "will feature nearly 35,000 brilliant shells exploding over New York City" in the country's largest Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza. The one-hour Spectacular will be televised at 9PM from New York.

• Paula Abdul says she's finally found her purpose. I hope she has a backup plan.
  
• I like Dominic Monaghan, because he had a really hard time saying goodbye to his chameleon.
  
• It's always something: Matt Lauer is catching major heat for not wearing his seat belt.
  

NBC is trying to save money everywhere.

Longtime Dateline host Stone Phillips is being let go by the network, for money reasons. Phillips' current co-host, Ann Curry, will continue to do the show. I guess NBC wants someone in there who is already under contract and does other stuff at the network. Curry is the newsreader on The Today Show too. She'll be joined by various NBC reporters as rotating co-hosts.

No word on what Phillips will do now. I wonder why they didn't just keep him on and have him do other things at the network and MSNBC? Maybe he didn't want to, who knows.

I reported on the Daytime Emmy Award nominations yesterday and noted that Live with Regis & Kelly wasn't nominated in the Best Talk Show category. While that's technically true, the show was nominated in another category for morning shows. They'll go up against The Today Show, Good Morning, America and Univision's Despierta America in a new category. Regis still wasn't nominated for Best Host though.

Oh, and Regis is doing quite fine after heart bypass surgery yesterday. Kelly Ripa announced the news on the show this morning. One of his doctors said that Reege has "the heart of a 19 year-old." It wasn't clear which 19 year-old this was, but hopefully they will give it back to this person so they can also live a long, healthy life.

What made me think of this is the news that the Today Show is expanding to a fourth hour in September.

Yeah, that's exactly what's missing from my TV schedule: another hour of Today. Hey, let's add three more hours to Good Morning, America. Maybe The View can be an all-day thing, and ABC can show All My Children at 2 in the morning?

I didn't even know that Syler was a host of The Early Show. How could he be the host of a daily morning talk show on CBS and go around the country, cutting open people's heads and stealing their superpowers?

Actually, it's Rene Syler, one of the 34 co-hosts they have over at The Early Show (last time checked it was Syler, Harry Smith, Hannah Storm, and Julie Chen) is leaving the show to pursue other projects, including a book that will be released this spring. Her last day on the show will be December 22.

I know everyone was really busy yesterday, cooking and rushing around, but I was wondering if anyone still watches the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? I have no idea what the ratings are for the show every year, though I wouldn't be surprised if they are pretty good, considering there isn't anything else on the networks at that time.

I'm not a parade person at all. I can't stand, well, standing there waiting for marching bands and people in funny costumes go by (I've never seen the Macy's parade, I mean parades in general). Yesterday the weather was pretty bad in New York City: windy, rainy, raw, but the crowds still came out to watch the parade go by. Besides not liking parades, the one thing I hate about TV coverage of parades is the inane banter that the hosts do, and the info they're obvivously reading off of cards. Drives me nuts. TV Newser reports that Meredith Vieira might have gone a little bit overboard during her first year of covering the event.

I like the idea of the Macy's Day Parade, and the spectacle and the gala and the tradition, and I'm glad people like it so much they have it every year. But I can't watch it. How about you?