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Live and Kicking
by Sophia Banay
Apr 4 2008
Apr 4 2008
Can Kathie Lee Gifford juice up The Today Show's fourth hour—in a good way?
The Locks of Kathie Lee
Kathie Lee Gifford's hairstyles through the years.
See All Video & Multimedia
When it comes to ratings-winner The Today Show, more is more for NBC, which kicked off a fourth live hour of its morning pepfest in September. But the 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. slot has underperformed in viewer numbers, so on Monday, the network is ushering in Kathie Lee Gifford for a permanent gig co-hosting the troubled final hour.
“I thought that was a very smart move” on NBC’s part, says Brad Adgate, senior vice president at media planning and buying agency Horizon Media. “She’s very familiar to daytime viewers, and she’s comfortable in that setting. She can help sustain that fourth hour.”
Familiar Kathie Lee, the 15-year co-host of ABC’s Live With Regis and Kathie Lee and a former correspondent for Good Morning America, may be. But NBC is gambling that she’s better known for her one-of-the-gals cheesiness and loquacity—she famously discussed conceiving her children and stuffed tissues into her bra before a live appearance by Carmen Electra—than for the scandals that dogged her a decade ago. In 1996, Kathie Lee’s clothing line, sold at Wal-Mart stores, was found to have been produced using child sweatshop labor; the following year, her husband, sportscaster Frank Gifford, took up with an airline stewardess.
By the time she left Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, in 2000, she was a well-established target for everyone from Howard Stern to Saturday Night Live. Still, “I think people are going to be really happy that Kathie Lee’s back,” says Jim Bell, executive producer of Today, who calls Gifford an icon of morning television.
And as for that pesky fourth hour, Bell says it’s doing fine. “There’s room to grow, obviously. We’re staking out new territory.”
In its opening hour, 7 a.m., Today pulls in a 4.5 percent household rating, compared with 3.6 percent for Good Morning America, on ABC. That number drops to 1.6 percent by 10 a.m., a dip that Bell hopes Gifford can turn inside out. But because the time slot pits Today against a variety of syndicated shows across the U.S.—including the Rachel Ray Show, on ABC, Guiding Light, on CBS, and Montel Williams, on Fox in New York, the biggest market for many networks—executing a ratings coup is more difficult. And the daytime-TV crowd is notoriously loyal, comprising mostly elderly women or stay-at-home moms with fixed viewing habits.
That makes Kathie Lee the woman to reel them back in. As she put it on March 31, when she appeared on Today to announce her return, she is “eight years older, 10 pounds heavier, and a half-inch shorter. Just in time for HD television!”
Also on Portfolio.com:
Slideshow: The Locks of Kathie Lee
NBC Ditches Traditional Ad Sales Extravaganza
NBC's Flops
“I thought that was a very smart move” on NBC’s part, says Brad Adgate, senior vice president at media planning and buying agency Horizon Media. “She’s very familiar to daytime viewers, and she’s comfortable in that setting. She can help sustain that fourth hour.”
Familiar Kathie Lee, the 15-year co-host of ABC’s Live With Regis and Kathie Lee and a former correspondent for Good Morning America, may be. But NBC is gambling that she’s better known for her one-of-the-gals cheesiness and loquacity—she famously discussed conceiving her children and stuffed tissues into her bra before a live appearance by Carmen Electra—than for the scandals that dogged her a decade ago. In 1996, Kathie Lee’s clothing line, sold at Wal-Mart stores, was found to have been produced using child sweatshop labor; the following year, her husband, sportscaster Frank Gifford, took up with an airline stewardess.
By the time she left Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, in 2000, she was a well-established target for everyone from Howard Stern to Saturday Night Live. Still, “I think people are going to be really happy that Kathie Lee’s back,” says Jim Bell, executive producer of Today, who calls Gifford an icon of morning television.
And as for that pesky fourth hour, Bell says it’s doing fine. “There’s room to grow, obviously. We’re staking out new territory.”
In its opening hour, 7 a.m., Today pulls in a 4.5 percent household rating, compared with 3.6 percent for Good Morning America, on ABC. That number drops to 1.6 percent by 10 a.m., a dip that Bell hopes Gifford can turn inside out. But because the time slot pits Today against a variety of syndicated shows across the U.S.—including the Rachel Ray Show, on ABC, Guiding Light, on CBS, and Montel Williams, on Fox in New York, the biggest market for many networks—executing a ratings coup is more difficult. And the daytime-TV crowd is notoriously loyal, comprising mostly elderly women or stay-at-home moms with fixed viewing habits.
That makes Kathie Lee the woman to reel them back in. As she put it on March 31, when she appeared on Today to announce her return, she is “eight years older, 10 pounds heavier, and a half-inch shorter. Just in time for HD television!”
Also on Portfolio.com:
Slideshow: The Locks of Kathie Lee
NBC Ditches Traditional Ad Sales Extravaganza
NBC's Flops
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