Katie Couric Has a Theory for Why We're So Invested in Morning Show Drama
"Sometimes people turn morning shows into soap operas that they’re not," the TV news vet says.
It seems like whenever there's a shake-up at a morning news program or talk show, the gossip mill starts to churn out salacious theories about the exits — and the world can't get enough. Television news veteran Katie Couric, who used to anchor TODAY, has a pretty good idea why there is just so much interest from viewers when someone leaves their post.
“Unfortunately I think sometimes people turn morning shows into soap operas that they’re not,” she said on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Tuesday when asked by a caller about her thoughts on Tamron Hall's exit from TODAY and Megyn Kelly's upcoming position on the show following her departure from Fox News.
Katie further shared that viewers are usually very invested in the folks they tune into every day, so that's why there is so much hype around these moves. “Because they feel so intimately connected to the people on the show, they feel like they’re members of their family — they get very territorial and proprietary about it," she said. "And they read things into relationships.”
Sometimes when there is a major upheaval at a show, WWHL host Andy Cohen's name pops up as a possible replacement — as we saw last year after Michael Strahan left LIVE to work full time at Good Morning America. But don't expect to see Andy leaving the Clubhouse anytime soon. "You know there was a thing going on where my name was mentioned when Michael Strahan left Kelly's show, and as fun as that would be, I'm under contract to NBCUniversal, so I couldn't do it from the start," Andy previously shared with The Daily Dish last fall. "I kept telling everyone who would listen, 'I can't do this.' But nobody really wanted to listen. So I'm flattered that anyone would consider that I even could do the job as Kelly's co-host like that's awesome or on the TODAY show, that is the ultimate compliment for me."
Hear more from Andy on the subject, below.
