Matt Lauer and Ann Curry Halloween 2011, Ann Curry will be ousted as co-host of the "Today" show after months of speculation her job was in jeopardy, according to reports.
Secret meetings have taken place to find a different role at the NBC morning show for Curry, who has had the co-hosting gig since Meredith Vieira left last June.
“Today” declined comment on the reports Wednesday evening.
Curry began discussions with network officials weeks ago, according to the New York Times, and has hired lawyer Robert Barnett to represent her in negotiations.
Signs the show was struggling surfaced this spring, when “Today,” which regularly held the number 1 spot in morning ratings, was topped by ABC’s “Good Morning America” for several weeks.
“The ‘Today’ show was one of the things at NBC that they could always count on being number 1,” said Robert Thompson, the founding director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. “And the fact that it’s been being challenged for the first time in a long time now by ABC, I suppose has everybody scrambling.
“The first thing you do is you look at what’s changed, what are the variables,” he added. “Ann Curry as a cohost is one of the recent variables.”
Curry, who has been with "Today" since 1997, formerly serving as a news anchor, reportedly doesn’t want to leave the show.
“She got her dream job, and she doesn’t want to let it go,” a source close to Curry told the Times.
Among the names being considered to replace Curry are Savannah Guthrie, who co-hosts the third hour at “Today,” and Vieira.
Vieira has stayed with NBC since leaving her cohost spot, contributing to Dateline NBC and Rock Center with Brian Williams, and even doing special assignments for “Today.”
She also hosts the syndicated version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
It’s been reported that Curry may move into a foreign correspondent role for the show, playing up her hard news reporting skils.
“If you’re co-hosting the thing, and then all of a sudden you’re only a contributer in one way or another, that is a demotion of sorts,” Thompson said. “But I’m not sure that would be quite as spectacular as it would have been in some of these other much more visable moves that have taken place in morning television.
“For example,when Katie Couric left ‘Today,’ there was that huge deal and then the drumrole to her anchoring the CBS news,” Thomspon added. “Ann Curry, her taking over as ‘Today’ show host, has been much quieter and more subtle.”
Curry has been criticized for not having the same chemistry as her precdecessors with co-host Matt Lauer, whose contract was renewed in April for a reported $25 million-a-year.
“Katie Couric was really, really good at the job of cohosting the ‘Today’ show, which was that she had this huge range of job skills that went from putting on an apron when an author comes on that’s written a cookbook to going to serious journalistic mode if breaking news is going on,” Thompson pointed out.Couric left “Today” in 2006 to take the more serious job of anchoring CBS Evening News — a gig that didn’t work out. She is now doing specials for ABC News.
“Ann Curry conversely was someone who I think was much more tied to that reporting and journalistic kind of job,” Thompson said. “She moved into the ‘Today’ show host role, which she didn’t have that wide range of skills for.
“It’s interesting how as all of these people move up to these dream jobs, they’re often moving into jobs which don't let them do the things that they do best,” he added.
