Dueling women old news to Norville
Deborah Norville wants to know why network morning-show wars are always portrayed as a girl fight.
The “Inside Edition” anchor has issues with how ABC decided to have
Katie Couric fill in for vacationing “Good Morning America” anchor Robin
Roberts last week — and with how the media portrayed the story.
“Why is the press so quick to blame the chick?” Norville writes in a story titled “Why Women Lose the Morning TV Wars” in the New York issue of The Hollywood Reporter.
Recalling her tumultuous year-and-ahalf stint with “Today” from 1989 to 1991, in which the media portrayed her as scheming to steal Jane Pauley’s job and then blamed her for the show’s sinking ratings, Norville contends that the anchors’ names may have changed but the story remains essentially the same.
In reporting on the tightening ratings race between Nbc’s “today” and “gma,” Norville writes, “the press is going unchallenged in portraying key women in morning TV as victims and villains.”
The “Inside Edition” anchor, who just began her 17th year at the syndicated show, doesn’t hold the networks — particularly ABC — blameless, either.
In a message to Roberts in the article, Norville writes: “You deserve better than the way the Katie stunt was handled. As penance, make the network give you a prime-time special on something you’re passionate about.”
She also writes: “Would it have killed ABC to wait until
George Stephanopoulos went on vacation to bring Couric back to morning television?”
As Norville sees it, a Roberts and Couric team “would have wowed the audience.” She also cautions Couric to “make sure you don’t let [ABC execs] overuse you as you prepare to launch your show.” (Couric is readying her own syndicated talk pro- gram, which Disney-abc Domestic Television is distributing.)
In the Reporter piece, Norville also asks, “Will Roberts be blamed for a possible decline? Has she properly been credited for the ratings growth ‘GMA’ has enjoyed?
An ABC News spokesman declined to comment on the story, but referred us to a comment that “GMA” senior executive producer Tom Cibrowski gave to The New York Times in which he said Couric could substitute for a vacationing Stephanopoulos in the future.
Although Roberts is not credited specifically, the Times piece also noted that before she went on vacation, “GMA” came within 119,000 viewers of “Today” — the closest it has been since 2005, when it narrowed the gap to a scant 45,000.