A couple weeks back my co-author provided an excellent precis of what happened the morning of February 6, 1952, as Today had to throw out its planned program to cover the death of King George VI. As it happens, Billboard had been publishing ongoing reviews of Today (“because of its importance in opening up additional morning hours in television,” the publication promised it would continue to offer critiques “as long as it believes significant improvements may still be made”), and the program’s coverage of the King’s passing was a major component of its February 16 review.
Joe Csida’s review began by noting the program had improved in its second and third weeks, losing the “frantic, disorganized atmosphere” of its first week and slowly discarding ideas “which no doubt sound great on paper but come off just short of ludicrous on the air,” including a bowling match between players in Chicago and New York and a knitting contest. But the February 6 program, which had to deal with two major stories that broke before air, made Csida believe “the show really seemed to come into its own.”
The King’s death, obviously, dominated the morning. Csida noted that the program’s tribute included newsreel footage of the King’s life, a telephone report from London correspondent Romney Wheeler, and an in-studio visit from H.V. Kaltenborn, “who was shaken out of the hay for the event [and] contributed interesting sidelight and background data in interviews with Garroway to round out the picture.” Csida called the program’s coverage “dignified yet exciting” and that it “left little to be desired,” summarizing it as “knowing and beautifully-handled.”
(One casualty of the story was a plan to have a group of Boy Scouts take over the program that morning. Garroway had them come on camera, where he apologized to them and explained that in view of what had happened, the Scouts would need to come back the next day.)
As if that wasn’t enough, Today dealt that same morning with word that President Harry Truman, who had earlier called the state primaries “eyewash,” had decided to enter the New Hampshire primaries after all. The program carried a pickup from Washington with NBC’s Richard Harkness and newspaperman James Reston discussing the move. Their conclusion that Truman’s announcement was meant to counter the rise of Sen. Estes Kefauver, riding a wave of popularity after his well-known hearings into organized crime, prompted Csida to praise them for “a nice piece of ‘inside’ reportage.”
Csida concluded his review by noting that Today would rise and fall on how stories broke, and that the inevitability of dull news days meant that producers needed to bring together “sound thinking on the feature-type stuff,” and that other elements of the program needed improvement. However, he noted, “Garroway gets better every day. The guy is a great performer, and his development on this tough job is something to be marked in TV’s history books. Jim Fleming and Jack Lescoulie continue, too, to make solid contributions.”
Csida concluded his review with these words: “If the program’s planners and thinkers don’t let up, Today is a cinch to make it, and make it big.” (Wonder how that turned out?)