The Today Dumps On Ann Curry: Are Poor Ratings Really Her Fault?

Speculation is running rampart that The Today Show is preparing to replace Ann Curry. She currently shares the hosting duties with Matt Lauer. The reasons for her departure are said to be disappointing ratings and some weekly losses to Good Morning America which actually took the top morning show spot a couple of times in recent weeks. Why the ratings downturn for one of NBC's hottest money-generating properties? They say it's all about Ann, but let's take a closer look at the situation.

There was a time when GMA (Good Morning America) just about ruled the airwaves. Why? Because they had a terrific lineup of on-air personalities and kept the show upbeat. The Today Show has been a long-term ratings winner largely because of audience loyalty and an ability to book the best guests and cover topics the majority of people wanted to hear about. To the dismay of many, they often salted those positives with the negatives of being politically correct and leaning towards the left on many social issues. Now the salt seems to dominate the meal.

I almost always view the first hour of Today and GMA alternatively each week via DVR and have done so for a long time. While I will admit that Ann Curry lacks the persona and charisma of her predecessor or some of the other female television personalities who regularly appear as reporters or consultants on the show like Savannah Guthie and Kate Snow, I do not think Ann is the biggest problem at Today. I would say that the real ratings issue is that the show has made some very bad programming decisions over the past year and moved too far away from what morning show viewers want.

First of all, Today has become a downer. They recently featured a guest spot with a woman who lost her children and parents in a tragic house fire during this past holiday season. They called that interview an exclusive, but I just wonder who really wanted to watch it? Not me. It's hard enough to find things to feel good about these days without reliving horrendous tragedies over and over again for no good reason.

Another programming goof was having Bobby Brown perform live on Memorial Day. Really? While I know the man has lots of fans and for good entertainment reasons, there are also many people that blame him for the death of his ex-wife Whitney Houston. They do this because her family says she wanted nothing to do with drugs before he came along. Whether that is true or not, and whether it is even fair to blame him for anything related to the personal lifestyle decisions made by Whitney are matters up for debate. Those matters do not change the fact that having him perform live on Today so soon after Houston's tragic death was not a wise move.

More recently The Today Show, and NBC news in general, has simply chosen to completely ignore the fight between U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Congressional Committee looking into the 'Fast and Furious' situation. Even worse, they have apparently blackballed the family of murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Wanting answers to the many questions about their son's death, his parents have recently decided to speak out on the issue to any news gathering and reporting organizations that would listen. Kent and Josephine Terry told Fox News viewers that they felt that Justice Department officials were 'hiding something" about Brian's death.

Fox is just about the only cable or broadcast news gathering and reporting organization even covering the fight between Holder and the Congress over 'Fast and Furious'. I was honestly shocked when I spent an entire week watching The Today Show and heard not a single word about the scandal, the fact that Holder may be about to be held in contempt of Congress for failing to deliver documents, and that President Obama has now claimed executive privilege over those documents. It was like those things never even happened! There were also no interviews with the Terry family that I saw and that makes Today look very suspect when it comes to a lack of objectivity.

Despite its political or social leanings, The Today Show is basically a news program and should cover all the news whether they agree with it or not. There is no way that what has been going on with Eric Holder, the U.S. Congress and President Obama is not a newsworthy event of national importance. While no one can argue that Fox News is not friend of liberals, they certainly go out of their way to present all the news and as many sides of each story as possible. They have all but stood alone in their coverage of the 'fast and furious' scandal and the Terry Family's concerns about the death of their son as far as cable or broadcast news reporting goes.

These recent and reckless mistakes go to the heart of the problem at The Today Show. The powers that be who are in charge of the current rendition of that show should take heed and do so immediately. Instead of blaming Ann, try paying some attention to the interest's of your base audience instead of pandering to left-leaning political and social ideologies. The ratings tell the tale. While still dominating morning television, Today has lost viewers to GMA and even to the Fox and Friends morning show. That Fox program has grown in the ratings over the past year and recently expanded its live show to four hours.

NBC as a broadcast television network appears to have problems knowing who its viewers are and what they really want to watch of late. After investing a small fortune in The Firm, a 2011-2012 season television series adaptation of John Grisham's best-selling novel, the legal thriller did not deliver big ratings and has not been renewed. Another ratings disaster for NBC came in the form of a two-night prime time Justin Bieber event this past week. More people watched The O'Reilly Factor on Fox than the Bieber spectacular during the eight o'clock hour on both nights. Bieber also lost to a new episode of TNT's Dallas on Wednesday night during the nine o'clock hour.

The lesson learned for NBC should be to give viewers what they want, not what the network thinks they need. We didn't need a Bieber event when he was already over-exposed everywhere. We didn't need a weekly series based on a Grisham book published in 1991. We didn't need to see more of Bobby Brown so soon after the death of Whitney Houston. And then there was that Tonight Show debacle with Conan O'Brien which should have been a lesson learned instead of a bad sign of things to come. Good luck Ann.

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