Today Television Program

Lenny Boyette is a fixture on NBC's "Today." He's not a foreign correspondent, a cameraman or a guest. Still, all the security guards know him and wave when he arrives at Rockefeller Plaza. Even Matt Lauer and Katie Couric shake his hand and call him by name. Boyette is a 57-year-old retired military cook from the Bronx. And every weekday for the last five years, he has stood behind the barricades at the outdoor set to watch "Today" being taped. He arrives between 5 and 5:30 a.m.

Matt Lauer returned to the "Today" show on Thursday with his arm in a sling after flipping his bicycle over a deer -- only to see his playful colleagues don deer antlers. Lauer had surgery for a separated shoulder and missed three days of work following last weekend's Hamptons bike ride gone bad. He said he'll be wearing the sling for six weeks. NBC invited Tony Kornheiser of ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," who last week playfully suggested Lauer had faked the injury, for a mock confrontation.

NBC weatherman Willard Scott indirectly joked on the "Today" show Wednesday about a Bryant Gumbel memo that sharply criticized him, but said off the air that the morning-show host's remarks had "cut like a knife." "I feel so sorry that it happened," he added in an interview, referring to a published report Tuesday that disclosed Gumbel's 5-month-old memo, which had been intended as a private one for "Today" executive producer Marty Ryan.

Friday morning on NBC's "Today" show, in what was essentially a commercial for Monday's "Today" show and Tuesday's "Dateline," America saw its first interview with Nadya Suleman, Whittier single mother of 14, described by co-host Matt Lauer as "the woman everyone wants to hear from." Unusually large multiple births were once a thing of (apparently) happy celebrity. But those were accidents of nature or, if you like, acts of God, in a time when the womb did not divulge its secrets until labor day. Reproductive science has added all sorts of twists to the tale, and Suleman's fame rests not only on the octuplets, conceived through in vitro fertilization, but also on the six children she had by the same method before them.

Somewhere within the ordered chaos of Bryant Gumbel's small office on the third floor of Rockefeller Plaza is a letter, its edges yellowed and its message faded. * The note, circa 1981, was sent by a veteran NBC News reporter based in Germany. This man tells Gumbel to "keep your chin up." He tells him not to worry about those shrill skeptics carping about his appointment as host of the "Today" show.

Admitting the case was weak, the Long Beach city prosecutor Wednesday dropped charges that Don Jackson, a self-styled crusader against police brutality, resisted arrest during a secretly filmed "sting" in which a police officer appeared to shove Jackson's head through a plate glass window. Long Beach Municipal Judge Gary R. Hahn quickly agreed to the prosecutor's request for dismissal of the case against Jackson, who in turn claimed vindication of his efforts to expose police brutality.

Tom Capra, who led KNBC Channel 4 to the top of the ratings as news director, Monday was named executive producer of NBC's "Today" show. He said he'll "modernize" the morning series, which he described as "kind of super-serious right now." He also told The Times he intends to quicken the pace of "Today," which is in a struggle with ABC's "Good Morning America" to maintain ratings leadership of the wake-up audience.

Dr. Art Ulene, medical correspondent for NBC's "Today" show for the past 15 years, made his last appearance on the morning program Friday--and announced on the air that he is starting a new job Tuesday as a regular contributor to ABC's "Home" show. Ulene will contribute health and medical stories three times a week on "Home."

It's a few minutes before 7 a.m., showtime on the "Today" show. The white clouds have been freshly spray-painted on the weather map, as they are every day on the sunnyside-up "Today" set in NBC's Rockefeller Center. But the real-life weather on the venerable NBC News show is more honest than this morning's forecast: "delightfully mild."

In morning television, where viewing habits are as traditional as orange juice and coffee, the "Today" show lately has been waking up to a cold shower in the ratings. Since Jane Pauley departed and was replaced by Deborah Norville as co-anchor on the 38-year-old NBC show, "Today" has been replaced by ABC's "Good Morning America" as the top-rated network morning news show, with "Today" losing a surprising 10% of its rating in one three-week period.

Four hours in the morning apparently isn't enough. NBC's "Today" show is going prime-time, for one night only. Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Al Roker and Ann Curry will host a one-hour review on Dec. 22 of the year's biggest news events. It won't be strictly serious; the show will include big moments in pop culture and "Today" show bloopers. With its prime-time schedule suffering, NBC is reaching toward its more successful areas for programming. Late-night king Jay Leno is moving to prime-time next fall.

As guest host of "Today," First Lady Laura Bush proved Tuesday that she could be as chatty and genial as the broadcast pros. In fact, in the company of the NBC morning show's fawning veterans, Bush brought a welcome air of restraint -- while much of the time, her on-air companions might have seemed to the former teacher like schoolchildren on a sugar rush. "You did that so well, it's obvious that we are overpaid," news anchor Ann Curry marveled after Bush did a brief voice-over announcement.

Kathie Lee Gifford is returning to morning television next week as co-host of the 10 a.m. hour of the "Today" show with Hoda Kotb, NBC announced Monday. The arrival of Gifford, who spent 15 years co-hosting "Live With Regis and Kathie Lee" before departing in 2000, will allow the show to redeploy news anchors Ann Curry and Natalie Morales to other duties on the morning program. Both Curry and Morales had been named co-anchors of the fourth hour of the show with Kotb when "Today" extended the program in September.

NBC's "Today" show will expand to a fourth hour starting Sept. 10. The announcement Tuesday nails down a start date for the program's expansion, which was announced months ago. The new hour will be co-hosted by "Today" news anchor Ann Curry, national correspondent Natalie Morales and correspondent Hoda Kotb.

Love the "Today" show? You're about to love it more. At least, that's what NBC is hoping for next fall when the top-rated morning show expands to a fourth hour. Questions remain about who will lead the hour to be added on at the tail end of the show. By contract, Meredith Vieira, who co-hosts the show along with Matt Lauer, is barred from appearing on NBC's air when episodes of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- which she also heads up -- is on in some markets during that hour.

IT was holiday time on "Today," and Meredith Vieira was quizzing Martha Stewart about picking a Christmas tree. "Do you get the real thing, or do you like to fake it?" Vieira asked the domestic doyenne, her face fixed in an innocent expression. "I do both," Stewart said, going on to explain the benefits of using artificial trees.

The ongoing turmoil at NBC's "Today" show resulted in another departure Thursday when executive producer Tom Capra said he was leaving both the series and the troubled news division to join the network's entertainment department.

ABC's "Good Morning America" opened its program last Monday with these urgent words: "Just hours ago, a convoy of Western journalists was attacked in Afghanistan. Four are missing. We'll have the story." NBC's rival "Today" show could not have been more different, as co-anchor Katie Couric began: "Good morning. Everyone is wild about Harry.

An estimated 6.9 million viewers tuned in to check out Meredith Vieira's first day on NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday. That enabled the nation's most popular morning show to keep its edge over ABC's second-place "Good Morning America," which had 4.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.