Rumor has it that Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart is a shoo-in to be the new co-host on the Today show after soon-to-be departing host Katie Couric switches networks to CBS after her contract with NBC expires in May. Hart, 55, who is also currently finishing up a five-year contract signed in 2001 with Entertainment Tonight that will expire this year would bring with her respectable reputation a huge following, professionalism, and her famous liveliness to morning television.
Hart, who has anchored the show for two decades, signed a new long-term deal, giving her more than $5 million annually, said Joel Berman, president of Paramount Domestic Television, whose company produces the program.
Prior to the five-year contract that was renewed, Hart's deal with Paramount gave her an option to anchor the show for life. Upon sealing her last deal, the two parties agreed to renew on a five-year basis.
The contract also allows Hart to take a more creative role in possible "ET" spin-offs, including a children-oriented project and a celebrity homes show.
Hart joined the 25-year-old newsmagazine program in 1982 during its second season. She was the co-host of the canceled daytime talk show, The Regis Philbin Show.
Entertainment Tonight has ranked among the top five syndicated shows in ratings, and tied "Oprah" as the highest-rated syndicated program among women 25 to 54 in 2000.
Jann Carl would likely succeed Hart at the anchor desk at Entertainment Tonight.
The Couric Countdown
By J. Max Robins -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/28/2005
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6286862.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=supp
The drumbeat is getting louder and louder in the halls of CBS, signaling that Katie Couric is going to leap over to the network this spring when her NBC contract runs out. For the past year, CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves has been quietly wooing Couric to be Dan Rather's replacement as anchor of CBS Evening News. But now the talks are being conducted with a new urgency.
Until recently, the job had been a tough sell, even for a salesman's salesman like Moonves. The news division was in disarray in the aftermath of Rather's discredited 60 Minutes report last year about President Bush's National Guard service, and it couldn't have strengthened Moonves' hand with Couric that Andrew Heyward remained in his job as CBS News president for months, even as rumors of his impending departure swirled.
With Heyward's recent exit and the naming of network sports-division chief Sean McManus to replace him, CBS becomes a much more attractive home for Couric.
The Today star has said in recent interviews that she plans to make a decision by the end of the year whether to stay at NBC or pursue other options, which means Moonves and McManus know they have a limited window to lure Couric into their camp. (And they know that leaving temporary Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer in place much longer is soon going to look like the result of sheer indecisiveness.)
Word inside CBS News is that Viacom is committed from the very top to spend the money needed to reinvigorate a franchise that has become a threadbare operation in recent years, particularly in comparison with the news outfits at NBC and ABC.
Obviously, NBC has been trying to persuade Couric to renew her deal well before it expires—but without success. That only feeds the chatter that she still hasn't made up her mind. According to sources inside CBS, Moonves and McManus are working hard to quickly put a new face on the beleaguered news division and make it look like a place with growth potential. Nothing would send that message more clearly than landing A-list talent like Couric.
Still, Couric's dance with CBS could simply be a negotiating tactic to get NBC to sweeten her estimated $15 million annual salary. After all, she has deep roots at the network: Couric has been at NBC News for 16 years and has a long history with NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker, going back to their time together at Today in the early '90s.
Meanwhile, since new Today executive producer Jim Bell was installed last April, the show has stabilized—ratings are down 2% in total viewers compared with last fall, but the long push by arch-rival ABC's Good Morning America to supplant Today as the dominant wake-up show seems to have stalled.
Ironically, the fact that Today has seemingly righted itself may provide a rationale for Couric to take flight. Better to leave when you're still on top, this thinking goes, than when it looks like you're jumping before being pushed.
Since her pal Zucker left in 2000, Couric has lived through three executive producers and has taken more than her fair share of media abuse, culminating in a particularly vicious Alessandra Stanley piece last April in The New York Times that charged “America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall.”
Couric pals say the public pummeling took its toll, and the lure of helming a nightly newscast that would let her exercise more-serious journalistic chops might be too enticing to resist.
Last August, talking about a possible move, Couric, who turns a young 49 in January, told the New Yorker that, when things are going well at Today, she has “one of the best jobs in television.” But she added, “At the same time, everybody needs recharging.” My educated guess? Come summer, don't be surprised to see Couric charged-up about her new job.
E-mail comments to bcrobins@reedbusiness.com
This story is still developing.
Joyce Comments: I think NBC may just be calling Couric on her bluff by tempting Mary Hart to replace her as her contract also runs out at the same time. Couric has been a drag on Today since she last re-signed and is replaceable with Hart who would be a breathe of fresh air to the show.
Mary Hart, Onstage And Off The Ever-perky Tv Host Entertains Tonight In Atlantic City.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150919070126/http://articles.philly.com/1988-07-27/news/26236649_1_mary-hart-miss-south-dakota-entertainment-tonight-hostessBy Karen Heller, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: July 27, 1988NEW YORK — Mary Hart eats chocolate!
Mary Hart drinks wine!
And sometimes, when Mary Hart is alone in her kitchen and drops something heavy on her foot, she abandons her usual "gosh" and "golly" and "oh, my goodness" and actually swears!
But not often.
Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary. Not since Mary Tyler Moore has a television star been so sweet, so lively, so buoyant.
Go ahead, say it. Call the Entertainment Tonight hostess perky.
David Letterman did so relentessly, goading her almost nightly for six months, and did our Mary mind? "Wow! You couldn't ask for better publicity, now could you?" she said yesterday, sitting, with perfect posture, in the Plaza Hotel's Oak Room restaurant. "Well, if you look at being perky as emphasizing the positive side of life then, gosh, I'm perky."
Tonight she opens a six-night engagement at Atlantic City's Resorts International with Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles. (What is it about Mary and these bitter men?)
Her Atlantic City act, she contends, is much different from the show she performed in Las Vegas in April. "This time I wanted to do something that was much more me. More pop. More Broadway. More everything!" she said.
There was the just the slightest suggestion that, just perhaps, the Vegas show may have oh-so-briefly wiped that toothpaste smile from her pretty face - even if she did break down and cry when she arrived in her limo and saw her name all big and bold on the marquee.
The new 40-minute set features 10 songs, two male dancers, a five-piece band and four costume changes. For the record, they are an "ET outfit" - a black leather skirt and sweater; a flesh-colored, bugle-beaded dress; a frilly hot-pink number, and a black negligee-style dress with a jacket. It should come as no surprise that all the outfits are short.
Hart has replaced all the Vegas songs, save one. That would be "The Sound of Music."
"You know, I put the song in the Vegas act as a gag," said Hart, wearing a pink floral suit, bubble-gum-pink nail polish and a stash of diamonds on her neck, finger and wrist. "But then, my gosh, the audience just broke out in applause. I thought maybe they were missing the point, but then I realized this was really me!"
Atlantic City is important in the charmed and lively history of one Mary Hart. Born in Chamberlain, S. D. (population 1,800), Hart was asked to run in the Miss South Dakota pageant, but her father steadfastly refused permission. ''At 18, I was gosh-darned if he was going to tell me what to do, so I immediately signed up, and three months later I was in Atlantic City." That was 1971, and for her talent she sang the Beatles songs "Yesterday" and ''Something."
Alas, she did not win, but was selected as one of the 10 finalists.
After college, she worked on a Sioux Falls talk show while teaching high school English, Sunday school and - you guessed it - serving as a cheerleading coach.
Hart moved on to Iowa and Oklahoma, and married and divorced before arriving in Los Angeles in 1979. "Oh, I was like everyone else, all the other starving actors, looking for work, being turned down, trying acting or broadcasting, anything, getting nothing, just about running out of money, really down to my last quarters, and then I landed the job co-hosting PM Magazine out there."
So, how long did all this take, Mary?
"Seven months."
Hart co-hosted another talk show with Regis Philbin before she joined Entertainment Tonight six years ago. (She wasn't the first hostess, as ET diehards recall; that distinction belongs to Dixie Whatley.) Today, the show is seen on 163 stations and in 10 to 12 million homes nightly. Locally, it is seen on Channel 10 weeknights at 7:30 p.m.
And what a nifty job it is! Hart used to do a fair amount of reporting, but now she's mostly in the studio with co-host John Tesh, reading the news about various celebrities. There isn't one thing she doesn't like about the job. Well, maybe one.
"I'm never thrilled about divorces and personal problems," she said. ''Gee, that's sure not fun."
The show hasn't just made Hart a star, it's made stars of both her legs as well. Her agent had them insured at Lloyd's of London for $1 million - each.
Does that mean each time she nicks her knee shaving, she collects a cool $60,000? Does it mean that her paycheck is cut in half every time she wears pants on the show?
"I can wear anything I want, it's just I think skirts are more appropriate for the job. Actually, off the air I wear pants all the time. I wear jeans a lot," said Hart, her $2 million legs tucked under the table.
Hart is honest about them, too. "I always thought they were my strongest physical attribute, I just didn't think they would become an institution," she said.
Right now, Mary Hart is a curious breed of '80s star - famous for her legs and being perky and reading news about celebrities. She has one year left in her ET contract. If it came to a choice between entertainment broadcasting and entertainment, she'd pick the latter. She's hoping Atlantic City will help tip the scales. (Her tour will bring her back to the area, to Valley Forge Music Fair, in December.)
"I'd love to do movies like Romancing the Stone. I love action- adventures."
Series television? Something along the lines of Scarecrow and Mrs. King and, appropriately enough, Hart to Hart. And who does she admire of all the big music entertainers?
"You name it. The Pointer Sisters, Manhattan Transfer, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole. My gosh, she's talented. I've always loved Judy Garland. And I also like Gloria Estefan."
She bit into a piece of bread, looking as if she thought she'd named them all. But no!
"Oooohh-oooohh," Hart said, eagerly chewing away so she could politely articulate her exuberant thought with an empty mouth. "How could I forget?" she said, arms outstretched.
"Barry Manilow! I just love Barry Manilow!"
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