Madness in the Morning: Life and Death in Tv's Early Morning Ratings War

Rating:
Summary: Like a TV Guide article, but longer
Review: Mr. Hack has written an extended TV Guide article and published it under the guise of a 250-page book. While "Madness In the Morning" does offer interesting anecdotes along the way, it fails to address obvious questions: what differentiates morning news from other forms of delivery and how has the profile of the morning news viewer changed and impacted the formats of these programs. If this book were a morning show, you would tune out and go back to bed.

Rating:
Summary: Like a TV Guide article, but longer
Review: Surprise! The men and women who inform and dazzle us each weekday morning are no better than we. Hack's gossipy account reveals the flaws in the glitz and glamour of the TV morning news biz, inviting us to watch network executives decide that America needs a chimp as well as an idiosyncratic host; to follow that early-era Today host Dave Garroway's slow decline into a "quagmire of mental confusion and emotional vulnerability"; to cringe as Bryant Gumbel asserts his massive ego and skewers the efforts of his co-hosts and staff,including the harmless Willard Scott; and to check out the self-indulgent antics of David Hartman, the seemingly genial Good Morning America host. As NBC was the boldest of the three original TV networks in developing morning programming, Hack gives its history the most scrutiny, while he portrays CBS as the perennial laggard, making one wonder why the network ever threw Captain Kangaroo off the air. Best of all, this book, which has a tone greasy enough to keep the pages turning but not so malicious as to induce guilt, portrays men and women like Barbara Walters, Kevin Newman, Joan Lunden and Katie Couric, who sacrifice their private lives to usher in the start of the day, and the network executives who sit in a veritable pressure-cooker backstage trying to get them-or someone waiting in the wings-to keep the act going for just one morning more.

Rating:
Summary: BEHIND THE GLITZ OF EARLY MORNING SHOWS
Review: Surprise! The men and women who inform and dazzle us each weekday morning are no better than we. Hack's gossipy account reveals the flaws in the glitz and glamour of the TV morning news biz, inviting us to watch network executives decide that America needs a chimp as well as an idiosyncratic host; to follow that early-era Today host Dave Garroway's slow decline into a "quagmire of mental confusion and emotional vulnerability"; to cringe as Bryant Gumbel asserts his massive ego and skewers the efforts of his co-hosts and staff,including the harmless Willard Scott; and to check out the self-indulgent antics of David Hartman, the seemingly genial Good Morning America host. As NBC was the boldest of the three original TV networks in developing morning programming, Hack gives its history the most scrutiny, while he portrays CBS as the perennial laggard, making one wonder why the network ever threw Captain Kangaroo off the air. Best of all, this book, which has a tone greasy enough to keep the pages turning but not so malicious as to induce guilt, portrays men and women like Barbara Walters, Kevin Newman, Joan Lunden and Katie Couric, who sacrifice their private lives to usher in the start of the day, and the network executives who sit in a veritable pressure-cooker backstage trying to get them-or someone waiting in the wings-to keep the act going for just one morning more.