Playing The Morning Show Lottery

“One of the two Oregon couples who won the $345 million Powerball Lottery last month are determined to save every cent they get — and even pitted the morning shows against each other in a bid to see whether Today or Good Morning America would shell out the most freebies,” Page Six says.

In addition to first-class plane tickets, they wanted: “Four rooms per evening for the entire stay at the Waldorf . . . Meal allowance for the entire [four-day] trip for the group . . . [perhaps] an NBC representative taking the Wests’ group out to a nice restaurant as a possibility?” In addition, they wanted to attend an SNL performance, a Broadway show, and a guided tour of NYC.

“A source from within Today said, ‘When [executive producer] Jim Bell heard about the demands he said, ‘[Bleep] them!” Bell declined comment.”

> Update: 4:05pm: The family did not appear on Good Morning America yesterday, like Page Six said. They are scheduled to appear next week. “We [flew] the Wests and their kids commercial to NYC. We are putting them up at the Millennium Hotel in Times Square,” an ABC spokesperson said. “We told the family we don’t buy Broadway tickets for our guests or provide car service around New York except when we are moving them from one ABC location to another. Nevertheless, we are working all our contacts at NBC in an effort to get them ‘Saturday Night Live’ tickets, but so far NBC isn’t returning our calls. Go figure.”