Sunrise Sweepstakes

Barely a year ago, Jane Pauley was a second-string newsreader for a local TV station in Indianapolis. This week she goes on the air as the favored finalist in network television's most comprehensive talent hunt--well, since NBC went looking for a man to co-host the Today show with Barbara Walters in 1974. This time, the network is hunting for someone to replace Walters, who next month starts her $1 million-a-year job on ABC's Evening News.

The sunrise sweepstakes began last May after Walters announced her change of venue. NBC Vice Presidents Richard Fischer and Robert Mulholland screened some 150 tapes of local and network newswomen. Since July a dozen candidates have been brought to New York for interviews or live auditions, and three have reached the finals: Pauley, 25, who anchors the 5 o'clock news on NBC's Chicago affiliate; Consumer Expert Betty Furness, 60, who took the job provisionally when Walters left and completed her tryout last Friday; and Cassie Mackin, 38, a crack NBC Washington correspondent. After Mackin's final audition next week, NBC will poll 2,000 selected viewers in eight cities on their preference, and network executives expect to crown Walters' successor by Oct. 4--oddly enough, the day Walters makes her bow on ABC.

Second Fiddle. In fact, NBC already has a successor to Walters, Tom Brokaw, 36, who took over last week as prime host of Today after three years on the White House beat. His new leading lady, whoever she turns out to be, will play second fiddle. "The uneasy alliance between our co-hosts did not help the show," says Today's new executive producer, Paul Friedman, 31. "We're getting back to a single person in charge."

That is not all that is changing at Today. The set is being redesigned ("Something more comfortable, less formal and sterile," says Producer Friedman), and the show's sometimes clunky script virtually thrown out in favor of ad libbing. Jim Hartz, Walters' intelligent, bland cohost, will hit the road to find Charles Kuralt-ish features. Interviews will be shorter, and a battery of specialists (on science, health, sports, travel, consumer affairs) will be brought in. Says Friedman: "If we can't be spontaneous, we're in trouble."

Today, which since 1952 has been a gusher for NBC (annual revenues: as high as $22 million), is already in trouble. The show's audience is down 31% from 1973. Even so, Today still has twice the audience of either the sobersides CBS Morning News or ABC's fluffy Good Morning, America. But the ABC program, co-hosted by actors and spiced with gossip, has been stealing Today viewers, particularly younger ones. Today's new spontaneity is designed to win them back. Consequently, NBC'S search could end with Pauley. The honey-blonde from Indianapolis is young, poised and primly attractive. Viewer mail is running in her favor, and she even speaks like Barbara Walters.

The verdict, however, rests with Dick Wald, NBC Chairman Julian Goodman and President Herbert Schlosser, and that jury is still out. "If Miss 'X' walks in tomorrow, we might consider her," cautions an NBC executive. Quite so. During the 1974 talent hunt, Brokaw was the odds-on favorite, followed by other household names. The winner that time: Jim Hartz, almost-no one's first choice.

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