Steve Friedman

They used to throw baseballs as well as ideas around Steve Friedman's office during his heyday on the "Today" show. Friedman, a rotund, funny pooh-bah of an executive producer, would use a baseball bat as a gavel, banging it against a heating vent above his head to make a point or to call a meeting to disorder.

TV Talk: Stephanie Friedman, the 24-year-old daughter of Steve Friedman, the executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," gets her first big-time acting role on Wednesday's "Doogie Howser, M.D." episode on ABC. She plays a fast-food waitress. . . . CBS' "Street Stories," which premiered Jan. 9, has been extended through the summer. The 9 p.m. Thursday show is anchored by Ed Bradley. The program ranks 49th among 120 network series.

TV Talk: Stephanie Friedman, the 24-year-old daughter of Steve Friedman, the executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," gets her first big-time acting role on Wednesday's "Doogie Howser, M.D." episode on ABC. She plays a fast-food waitress. . . . CBS' "Street Stories," which premiered Jan. 9, has been extended through the summer. The 9 p.m. Thursday show is anchored by Ed Bradley. The program ranks 49th among 120 network series.

Above the skaters twirling and slipping on the Rockefeller Center ice rink, the motto on the face of NBC's New York headquarters building looks somewhat suspect: "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times." It's common knowledge at NBC News that launching a prime-time news program is a very risky proposition. After all, despite internal analysis of such successes as CBS' "60 Minutes," the NBC News unit has slipped up 16 times with attempts at prime-time programs.

Former "Today Show" producer Steve Friedman has been named president of GTG Entertainment. Grant Tinker's new company, it was announced Thursday. Friedman will head up a new, as-yet-unnamed New York division of the company that the former NBC chief started with Gannett. Its principal focus: reality- and news-related programs. Friedman announced his departure from "Today" last week; his move to GTG was widely speculated before the announcement.

For Steve Friedman, his home debut on the U.S. national volleyball team basically amounted to a cameo appearance in Saturday night's exhibition match against China in UC Irvine's Bren Center. He spent more time on the bench--actually, Friedman stood with the other reserves on the sideline, arms folded--than on the playing court. But for a brief moment he escaped anonymity, making a kill in the second game. The PA announcer's voice boomed: STEVE FRIEDMAN. And, that was it.

Steve Friedman has turned over to James Bellows day-to-day management of the syndicated "USA Today: The Television Show." Friedman says plans for the transition were announced Oct. 11 when he hired Bellows as the show's managing editor. Friedman, executive producer of "USA Today," also wears another hat--that of president of GTG East, the New York branch of ex-NBC chairman Grant Tinker's GTG Entertainment, which produces the TV show.

Steve Friedman, the brash "Today" show producer whom Grant Tinker lured from NBC in 1987 to create the TV version of the USA Today newspaper, said Wednesday he's quitting Tinker's company on May 29. While the announcement was a surprise--Friedman's contract runs through September, 1990--both he and Tinker, the former chairman of NBC, emphasized in interviews that the parting is amicable. They said it was prompted by the desire of Friedman, 42, to produce shows, but not to have to sell them to sponsors and networks.

USA Today, the national newspaper whose short stories and flashy graphics remind some readers of television news coverage, plans to hit the airwaves itself in the fall of 1988. The proposed video version of the newspaper was unveiled here Tuesday by Grant Tinker, former chairman of NBC, and Steve Friedman, former executive producer of NBC's top-rated "Today" show.

They used to throw baseballs as well as ideas around Steve Friedman's office during his heyday on the "Today" show. Friedman, a rotund, funny pooh-bah of an executive producer, would use a baseball bat as a gavel, banging it against a heating vent above his head to make a point or to call a meeting to disorder.

In a shake-up at NBC News on Friday, Don Browne was named to the No. 2 slot in the division and Steve Friedman, a former "Today" show producer, was hired to be executive producer of "NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw." According to NBC sources, the two appointments by NBC News President Michael Gartner were intended in part to demonstrate that he is aggressively dealing with problems in the division as the network prepares for its annual affiliates meeting in Washington in June.

There is an unhappy silence these days at the Culver Studios, where Grant Tinker still occupies a corner office on the second floor. The leafy 17-acre lot is as motionless as a college campus on summer break. High above, on one of the hangar-size studio buildings, is emblazoned in 10-foot letters "GTG Entertainment," which stands for Grant Tinker Gannett, the partners in Tinker's now defunct production company.

Steve Friedman, the brash "Today" show producer whom Grant Tinker lured from NBC in 1987 to create the TV version of the USA Today newspaper, said Wednesday he's quitting Tinker's company on May 29. While the announcement was a surprise--Friedman's contract runs through September, 1990--both he and Tinker, the former chairman of NBC, emphasized in interviews that the parting is amicable. They said it was prompted by the desire of Friedman, 42, to produce shows, but not to have to sell them to sponsors and networks.

Steve Friedman has turned over to James Bellows day-to-day management of the syndicated "USA Today: The Television Show." Friedman says plans for the transition were announced Oct. 11 when he hired Bellows as the show's managing editor. Friedman, executive producer of "USA Today," also wears another hat--that of president of GTG East, the New York branch of ex-NBC chairman Grant Tinker's GTG Entertainment, which produces the TV show.

Steve Friedman was in New Orleans last week, kibitzing with pals from his network days as they covered the GOP convention. John Hart was in Boston, practicing a program. But each was thinking of Sept. 12. On that day, each will be involved with new half-hour weeknight TV programs, with Hart anchoring the Christian Science Monitor's "World Monitor" and Friedman producing "USA Today: The Television Show."

In a shake-up at NBC News on Friday, Don Browne was named to the No. 2 slot in the division and Steve Friedman, a former "Today" show producer, was hired to be executive producer of "NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw." According to NBC sources, the two appointments by NBC News President Michael Gartner were intended in part to demonstrate that he is aggressively dealing with problems in the division as the network prepares for its annual affiliates meeting in Washington in June.

Steve Friedman returns to Los Angeles today, where 19 years ago he was a news writer at KNBC Channel 4, writing for anchor Tom Snyder. He worked then on what he now calls "linear" newscasts, in which stories appear in the order of their importance. "That's not what we're going to do," he said here on the second of six press conferences he's holding this week--including one in Los Angeles today--to tout the syndicated news show that he'll be introducing this fall, "USA Today: The Television Show."