Six weeks into the job, ‘Today’ executive producer Jim Bell “isn’t changing the formula, but he’s ratcheting up the competitive metabolism while cutting Katie Couric and Matt Lauer loose from scripts he feels made the show too predictable,” Variety’s Michael Learmonth reports.
“From the beginning it struck me that Katie and Matt were able to be a little bit more off-the-cuff and not have the whole three hours scripted,” Bell said. “They don’t always need things on the teleprompter; it’s better to have them more casual and conversational…. People can sense when things are overly scripted.”
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