New York – Now that Tony Bennett has serenaded her with “The Best Is Yet to Come” on her final “Today” show, Katie Couric is about to find out whether that’s true.
Couric will address a meeting of CBS affiliates in Las Vegas today, drumming up enthusiasm for her new job as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” She’ll make her debut on that show in September.
She can only hope for more fans like Jesper Butler of Jesup, Ga., who flew to New York with his wife so he could stand outside the “Today” Rockefeller Center studio Wednesday and experience NBC’s going-away party in person.
“I’m going to watch her no matter where she goes,” Butler said.
It was a long goodbye in more ways than one: NBC has been celebrating Couric’s 15-year tenure as morning television’s leading personality almost since she announced her job change April 5, and the final three- hour show was almost entirely Couric-focused.
“It’s a little embarrassing,” Couric said. “It’s a lot of Katie. Three hours.”
At the show’s end, she surveyed the multilayer cake with “KC” written on it and raised a glass of champagne. “To everyone in TV land, thanks so much,” she said.
Co-host Matt Lauer placed a box of tissues on the table in front of them at the show’s outset, but it wasn’t needed. Couric held it together, although one tear was spotted in the corner of her eye as “Today” talked to some of the people she had interviewed over the years – an inspiring school principal, a woman brutally raped in Central Park, survivors of the Columbine High School rampage and the 2001 World Trade Center attack, and the parents of a boy who had died of brain cancer.
“In meeting her and talking to her, I felt that it helped heal me as well,” said Lauren Manning, who was burned during the terrorist attack.
“Today” has dominated morning television for more than 10 years, never losing a week in the ratings, and is the most profitable show on television in advertising revenue.
Couric was the biggest reason for that success. During her time on the air, “Today” fans watched as Couric, now 49, grew from a chipper young reporter to a mother with two girls and a young widow when her husband, Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer.
With Couric’s departure, NBC is shutting down its streetside Rockefeller Center studio for a summer makeover, preparing for Meredith Vieira of “The View” to take over as her successor in the fall. “Today” will spend the summer in an outside studio nearby.
Couric, whose parents and daughters watched from outside the studio, acknowledged the mixed feelings of nostalgia and eagerness for a new challenge.
“I’m feeling happy and sad and completely out of control,” she said at the show’s outset.
