Still, Today knows it needs to move forward to stay alive. I know we'll experiment . . . Last month, as ABC showed viewers its gigantic new GMA studio's panoramic view of Times Square, NBC put Today on a giant Astrovision screen a block away from ABC's studio, facing their windows. Couric said, laughing. Mariah Carey's defection from The Early Show in favor of Today hit the newspapers.
Nobody wants to be third or even second.
It's not the sort of language you expect from Good Morning America's avuncular, almost-professorial father figure. But one look at the image filling the wall-size TV monitor in GMA's Times Square studios, and you're ready to forgive anchor Charlie Gibson. He's busy watching a ghost from his past. On the screen, ex-GMA weatherguy Spencer Christian is kibbitzing on Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, looking awfully West Coast in an open shirt and sunglasses. Before long, three or four other crew members have joined Gibson at the screen, smiling at the image of a former colleague who got pushed off the show last January.