Contracts are important and when those contracts come up in the entertainment and especially the news industry, wild rumors can abound. Some not so wild rumors have included Matt Lauer and Anderson Cooper in the past couple of weeks, the newest of which says NBC executives have talked to Cooper about potentially replacing Lauer on Today.
It’s no secret that Today has been having ratings troubles ever since the network decided to fire Ann Curry. Many viewers have blamed Lauer for the botched operation, although I think this was more poor form on the network heads’ part. According to Deadline, despite a little time left on Lauer’s contract, the network is looking to replace the host and Cooper is the most recent name to be added to a pile that also includes Ryan Seacrest, Willie Geist, and David Gregory.
Clearly, if Cooper is being considered, the decision is still up in the air. Recent reports have also indicated that Cooper shot a pilot with comedian Kathy Griffin and both Lauer and Cooper have also been rumored to be in consideration to take over Jeopardy!, although that post is a little further down the road. Alex Trebek will need to gracefully retires in a few seasons when his 3-year contract runs out before the new host takes over. Even though Cooper is losing his daytime show, Anderson Live, it clearly looks as if he will have plenty of options coming up—which is a good thing, since I could watch the Silver Fox in anything, even a fluffy morning news program. We’ll have to wait and see how the chips fall, but some big changes seem to be afoot for several of TV’s biggest names.
Update: Anderson Cooper is not in line to take over Today duties, after all. THR is reporting Cooper was initially contacted about the gig. However, Cooper is not interested in hosting Today and NBC is currently sticking to its guns and saying Lauer is the man for the job. At least that Jeopardy! job is still open.
