Ann Curry Today Show

Ann Curry Today Show, NBC executives are making a plan to replace Ann Curry on the “Today” show, only a year after she became the co-host of the newly vulnerable morning television franchise.

The planning – which is taking place in secret and has not been completed – is effectively an admission that all is not well at “Today,” the show that invented morning television 60 years ago and inspired countless lower-rated competitors since. “Today” consistently ranked No. 1 in the morning ratings until this spring, when ABC’s “Good Morning America” beat it in the ratings for several weeks.

Even before then, some at NBC were openly criticizing the co-hosting style of Ms. Curry, 55, who succeeded Meredith Vieira last year, after spending 14 years on the show in a lesser role. Questions about her future have circled the broadcast for months, as some staff members have placed the blame for the ratings woes on Ms. Curry and others have defended her.

The questions have been debated at the highest levels of NBCUniversal because “Today” is a profit center for the network, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue each year.

Several weeks ago, network officials and Ms. Curry began to discuss a different job for her, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations, who insisted on anonymity because the matter was confidential. Those discussions have continued and are expected to be completed before NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics begins in late July.

Ms. Curry, who has not had a television agent for years, has hired a well-known lawyer, Robert B. Barnett, to represent her in the negotiations, according to these people. It is unclear whether she has explicitly agreed to any arrangement that NBC has offered her in lieu of “Today.” But several people who know Ms. Curry say that she has been struggling with the idea of leaving the show for some time. (New York Times)