Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Katies in the News

Doesn’t Katie Holmes have enough on her mind—i.e., keeping her mouth shut while trying to pass the Cruise progeny through the birth canal—without adding network news reporting to her plate?

Oh. Sorry. Wrong Katie.

Ha ha. I jest. So, it’s the other Katie who’s about to announce her defection from NBC’s Today Show to CBS’s Evening News. Apparently, 65 million dollars (with a reported raise to 80 million) wasn’t enough to get Ms. Couric out of bed anymore.

I started to play around with the math but…well…y’all know how good I am with figures. Between rating points…household numbers…yada yada, yada…I thought my head would explode. Oh, well. The best I could come up with is that 80 million over four years (assuming roughly 260 weekdays a year) translates to $75,000 a day.

Is it me, or is $75,000 a day just a little obscene? Y’know, like an embarrassing amount? Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the gal’s gotta balance her checkbook at the end of the month just like the rest of us. Only our version of keeping up with the Jones’s doesn’t require one-upping Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters in the salary department. Poor Katie. That’s serious pressure, doncha think?

Speaking of pressure, at first glance, the new anchor job appears a whole lot tougher than the old morning show. Much more difficult than, say, chatting with Matt Lauer and Willard Scott for three hours. Now, she’ll actually have to – gulp—read the news off a Teleprompter. (Hey, wait. Even I can do that.) But…but…she’ll also have to appear calm in a crisis, won’t she? (Hey, wait. I can do that too!)

And for a whole lot less money.

Attention all network honchos! Are you listening?? I'm available!

4 comments:

John said...

You need to work on your stage name. Sheridan St. Louis comes to mind. (snicker)

A former co-worker's name was Randi Warick, which rymes with Katie Couric.

Or something like that.

Anonymous said...

You're very good at writing drivel, but don't presume that you're in any league with the people who report the news.

Randy said...

Hey, and don't assume I have no experience reporting the news. Well okay, so it was college.

I read from a teleprompter.

I kept calm in a crisis.

No one paid me.

Case closed.

(Besides, do you really think I believe I'm more qualified than Ms. Couric? The point is, neither one of us is Walter Cronkite.)

John said...

Nice slam on the drivel, but what is most of the news anyway? I think your drivel is more entertaining, and probably more accurate, too. I've been interviewed about a dozen times for budget stuff, and if the cutsy news role models get half of it right reading from their prompters, I consider them worthy of a gold star.