TVSquad

Yes, you read that headline correctly. The First Lady has gone from being a guest on NBC's Today show to becoming part of it.

Mrs. Bush will guest host the 9 am hour of Today next Tuesday, April 22nd (that also happens to be the day of the Pennsylvania primary). That later part of the show is usually quite a bit softer, with less political talk and more topics aimed at women. Laura Bush will also appear earlier in the broadcast with daughter Jenna to talk about their children's book, Read All About It!. And she will give Ann Curry a tour of the family's Crawford, TX ranch.

I think we can officially slide Today over to the same category as The View, rather than a news program. But many people probably did that when Meredith Vieira took Katie Couric's spot on the show. It's not as if Mrs. Bush is going to be asked who she endorses to replace her husband as president while she's co-hosting. Oh, wait. I can totally see that happening. Ed Murrow is rolling over in his grave.

Is Kathie Lee Gifford coming back to daytime? Does Regis know; does he care? Well, whatever the case with Reeg, there is talk that La Kathie Lee may be ready for a new talk show gig. In the Hollywood Reporter, Today executive producer Jim Bell said Kathie Lee Gifford is on the short list as a co-host for the fourth hour of the show. "I think she's a great talent," he said of KLG, while adding that other names are in the hopper as well.

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• On December 17, Ann Curry is going to bungee jump off a bridge.
• Here's the trailer for the big screen Speed Racer movie.
• Behind the scenes of Rachael Ray.
• MTV picks the 10 most uncomfortable star interview moments (I think the Phoenix interview should be #1).
• Cracked picks the 13 most ridiculous TV shows of all-time (I don't agree with their choices of Quark and The 100 Lives of Blackjack Savage.)
• Tim Goodman has started a new TV blog, and he picks the 5 best Christmas specials, and I really can't argue with that list (though Miracle on 34th Street should probably be in there).

Former Live with Regis & Kathie Lee star Kathie Lee Gifford is going to guest host the fourth hour of NBC's Today Show tomorrow.

As I mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of any morning show having a fourth hour. Even if they brought back Breakfast Time I'd say that two hours was enough. And just the fact they're now getting "guest hosts" proves how trivial the fourth hour really is. But isn't the third hour mostly cooking, celebs, and fashion tips too? What's the fourth hour, just all the ladies (Ann Curry, Natalie Morales, and Hoda Kotb) having pillow fights with each other while Al Roker watches? Let's just hope Kathie Lee doesn't sing.

NBC's press release is kind of odd. It says that this appearance "will mark the first time she has co-hosted the fourth hour of Today." Has she co-hosted any of the other three hours of the show?

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]

Doing the news can't be easy. It's a lot more than just reading the teleprompter, especially when you do it live. The really good anchors make it look easy and the merely competent ones make it look hard (but you feel for them). It's the really bad ones that make you cringe and throw something at the TV (or change the channel). Not only are they incompetent when it comes to skills, they have an off-putting air about them. At best they are anchors who should be reporters and not sit in an anchor chair.

I've picked the three very worst ones I can find on TV right now. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about news people who read the news or anchor. So you won't see show hosts like Nancy Grace or Bill O'Reilly here. And I'm concentrating on national anchors, not local ones. There's not enough space on the web to do one on local anchors. Though I'd love to do one on Boston anchors some day.

1. Rick Sanchez (CNN): Do I really have to explain why he's #1? OK...

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.

After Today's presentation at NBC's press tour day, I wandered up to the stage to ask Al Roker, Meredith Vieira, and Ann Curry some questions (Matt Lauer bolted to catch a flight back east right after the presentation was over). I had one and only one question for Curry, which was "Were you disappointed when you didn't get the anchor job?"

Let's just say that she had a lot of feelings about the move; she even copped a slightly defensive tone when she discussed her own field reporting from Lebanon and Darfur. But all of this came out without prompting by me; I think that somewhere in this soliloquy I uttered the question "So you're doing more field reporting now?" but that was about it. The woman knows how to filibuster; can a career in Congress be in her future?

Curry's entire response is after the jump:

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?

Probably the least-surprising news to come out of yesterday's NBC sessions was that the network is going to expand Today to a fourth hour. NBC News president Steve Capus and Today executive producer Jim Bell paneled with Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Al Roker, and Ann Curry to discuss the move as well as the show's year of transition.

Of course, the show's signature easy-going goofiness was in evidence. Matt Lauer: "I see you all typing away on your laptops, and I'm not going to tell you what your headline should be. But the headline we think should be 'Today show crew boringly happy.'" Meredith joked about kissing a monkey on the show earlier that morning: "I can't get over the fact I kissed a monkey this morning. I initiated it, and quite frankly, I can't stop thinking about it."

So, before I drove down to Rich's homestead this morning, I decided to flip on the Today show to see what they were doing for Christmas. To my surprise, the entire crew was there: Matt, Meredith, Al, Ann... even Natalie was sitting on the couch, an unusual thing to see before 9 AM. I thought that was a nice gesture on the crew's part, spending Christmas with America before going back to their families. They even said as much, saying they were going to return home to help their families celebrate after the show was over.

Then they turned things over to Lisa Daniels, who was sitting in a separate studio, to do the news and weather. Which is when it hit me: This wasn't live! I mean, think about it: Ann and Al were there in the studio. Why weren't they doing the news and weather, like they do the rest of the year? Because they probably taped the show two weeks ago, before Matt Lauer and Natalie Morales left on vacation, and they figured viewers would be too awash in wrapping paper and gingerbread to really notice or care.

They're probably right. But why assume the worst about the audience? Tell them up front that the show is on tape; I don't think we'd think any less of Today because everyone decided to take a day off on Christmas. I'd rather be dealt with honestly than treated like an idiot, wouldn't you?

Or maybe America isn't asking why. If the ratings are there, then they must be watching. But I have to wonder: what the hell do these people do that they are watching so many hours of The Today Show in the morning? I mean, I work from home and write about TV, and even I can't imagine having any interest in it. Though I guess I'm not the demographic they're shooting for.

But it's probably coming in 2007. Matt and Meredith won't host it though, and neither would Al or Ann. It would probably go to Access Hollywood's Billy Bush and maybe a co-anchor.

If they actually do a fourth hour of the show, I really hope they have more celebrity interviews! And cooking demonstations! And maybe makeup tips and fashion segments!

The end of sweeps last week marked Today's eleventh consecutive year as the number one morning news program in the nation. The big ratings all started in 1995, when Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric hosted together. The addition of Matt Lauer in 1997 only strengthened the show's ratings. And now, with Katie gone to CBS, the addition of Meredith Vieira seems to be fine with viewers. In fact, they seem to really like her since about 20,000 more people are watching Today than they were at this time last year.

Why is Today still number one? I think it's simply tradition. Today was the first of its kind. Good Morning America and The Early Show both are copycats of the successful format but neither show has ever been able to match Today. Even now, the anchors on Today all seem much more relaxed. The show seems to flow much smoother than Good Morning America, which is legendary for its awkward transitions, and The Early Show, which constantly seems to be fumbling. Also, NBC has 'hosts', while the other networks have 'anchors'. NBC gets that the morning programs stopped being about news a long time ago.

[Via TV Newser]

No, it's not the start of a dumb joke. I'm sincerely asking you good folks at TVS the question, because it seems like the answer would be the same since Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb: about half a second.

Somehow, NBC executives think it takes a lot longer than that: an hour, to be exact. That's how long tonight's special, Christmas in Rockefeller Center, will last. The 74th Rock Center tree-lighting ceremony, hosted by Ann Curry and Al Roker, will be padded with performances Christina Aguilera, Taylor Hicks, Enya, John Legend, Sarah McLachlan, and others. If you live in the New York area, you'll actually get two hours to bask in the tree's darkness; WNBC will begin airing their special at 7, and the rest of the country will join them at 8. And you thought New Yorkers moved faster than the rest of the country.

Anyway, all the performances lead up to the climactic last thirty seconds of the show, when [SPOILER ALERT!] the tree will be lit. Not sure what they're going to do with the last twenty-nine-and-a-half seconds, but I'm sure they'll think of something.

Well, the new Today Show host has officially had her most embarrassing moment on the show, on the annual Halloween show.

Of course, I'm not sure what's more embarrassing, the fact that Vieira got stuck in a giant clam that was supposed to come out from behind a glittery curtain (you can see the stagehands trying to pull the clam out from behind the curtain) or the fact that Vieira decided, for some reason, to dress like...Bette Midler??

You get to see Matt Lauer dressed as Jack Sparrow and Al Roker as that squidface (?) thing from The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Natalie Morales was Madonna, and Ann Curry was a very annoying Cher. Click here, then click on "Video: Today crew reveals costumes."

[via TV Newser]