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Katie Couric and ABC television are on the verge of signing a $20 million deal, which would give Katie her own talk show, as well as significant involvement in ABC News -- and the big casualty could be "General Hospital." ABC would also give Katie a 1-hour, 5-day-a-week syndicated talk show, that would begin in September, 2012. Our sources say ... one option ABC is considering is giving its affiliates back the hour where "General Hospital" airs to make room for Katie. In other words, ABC would axe the third longest-running soap in history and the last one standing on...

CBS EVENING NEWS RATINGS BRIEF ATTN: LISTING EDITORS December 19, 2006 "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC" RATINGS BRIEF, WEEK OF DEC. 11-15, 2006 FOR THE WEEK (12/11/06-12/15/06) --CBS is the only network that is up in A25-54 and A18-49 from the previous week. Both NBC and ABC are down. A25-54 A18-49 CBS 1.9 from 1.8, +6% 1.4 from 1.3, +8% NBC 2.2 from 2.4, -8% 1.6 from 1.8, -11% ABC 2.2 from 2.4, -8% 1.5 from 1.7, -12% FOR THE SEASON (through 13 weeks: 9/18/06-12/15/06 vs. 9/19/05-12/09/05) Important note: CBS’ season-to-date numbers do not include the first two weeks...

By Mark Finkelstein January 20, 2006 Just as our intelligence experts are parsing every word in the OBL tape, so does a careful analysis of Katie Couric's interview this morning of Peter Bergen, British author of "The Osama Bin Laden I know", provide important insights into her MSM mindset. At one point, Katie made this statement: "He talks about Pres. Bush in the tape and he says he's foolish for ignoring the poll numbers that indicate the American people want him to pull out of Iraq. How do you think he's keeping abreast of all this. It's sort of odd,...

Katie Couric vs. Matt Lauer A civil war between the stars of the Peacock network's Today show has been brewing for some time. A major media insider with a whole bunch of friends at NBC gave NewsMax the real story about the Today program and some of the negative press Matt Lauer has been getting. Recently, the National Enquirer splashed a cover story alleging Lauer had engaged in drug use almost two decades ago. The story had the corroboration of a house of cards and was based on a lie detector test given to an alleged drug dealer. NewsMax didn't...

NBC NEWS star Katie Couric has taken Hollywood and late night TV by storm, overnight NIELSEN ratings show, after the TODAY show host tried her hand at TONIGHT duties -- with stunning success! Last night's 7.4 rating/18 share for Couric from Burbank is near record-levels for late night, with an audience size gauged at nearly double over last Monday night's standard Jay Leno run on NBC. Meanwhile, on the other side of the flip, Jay Leno's hosting of Couric's TODAY on Monday morning maintained audience levels from last week, with a 5.9 rating/18 share. MORE "Couric may, in fact, be...