• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 4, 2006

Katie Couric going to CBS? Who's to blame? That's actually a two-part question.

Blame Les Moonves, chairman of CBS Corp., for unofficially looking to court her; blame someone at NBC, perhaps her longtime friend and "Today" show producer, Jeff Zucker, now chairman of NBC Universal Television Group, for letting her go.

The TV industry likes to point fingers. But considering Couric has been the co-host of "The Today Show" for 15 years--and rumored to be leaving the show for about a year--this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Still, someone at NBC must be taking it hard. Here are those thoughts: "That's all we need now. As if NBC didn't have enough things going wrong with it, now Katie Couric, a major brand name, is about to leave. She's making me look like a smuck."

No doubt those NBC executives have some form of "smuck insurance," which essentially means this: Cover your ass, and make sure you haven't been the only network executive responsible for letting Couric slip through you fingers.

A decade and a half is a long run. How many times can Couric keep abiding by those 4 a.m. wake-up calls? How many more cute, girly smiles does she have left in her? Regular working hours must look more civilized--even when reporting on hard-core war stories in Iraq, where smiles aren't appropriate.

But hold off the applause for CBS. Credit the network for being consistent in its attempts to go after her. And then give the network a good kick in the pants for not making a bolder move to replace the single "voice of god"-like newscast role of an anchor with a team of anchors--or some other format.

Doesn't CBS at least want to bring down the average age of an early evening newscast viewer to something lower than, say, 62? Shouldn't network executives be looking at the future? Not right now. Not with hundreds of millions of dollars still at stake for the early evening network newscasts. Not with new CBS Corp. shareholders looking over executives' shoulders at every microscopic management, personnel, or programming move.

All this will give CBS plenty of headlines for the next several weeks, boosting its image going into a possible not-so-strong upfront advertising selling season. That image? A firm handshake and now, that smile, might get them through more doors.