Can They De-Springerize Talk?

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Despite her VJ (and Pepsi Challenge pitchwoman) resume, she stresses, "This is not an entertainment show." She might interview some of the artists she hung with on MTV--if, she says, they're interested in issues or have a story, like childhood abuse, to share. "If it's just about promoting an album, that's not what this show is. That's what I did on MTV."

She wants to bring her MTV audience over, though, and their moms with them. Lewis, says her producer Mary Duffy, intends to be an intergenerational "conduit of information" about hot-button topics like school violence, depression and teen sex--a topic Lewis raised at MTV, in true confessional-host mode, by talking about a temporary vow of celibacy she took. "So many young girls stopped me in the street then and told me they made different choices [about having sex]," she recalls.

Her big-sisterly image is no guarantee that girls will switch off TRL or that Lewis can draw older women with political topics, as her model Donahue did. There is something touchingly old-fashioned about Lewis' belief that people will turn on talk TV for its edifying effects; when Donahue ended his show in 1996, it was after a desperate attempt to beat the sleaze slingers at their own game.

For Vanzant or Lewis to succeed, it will mean cutting into Oprah's lane on the high road or proving that viewers, contrary to their recent choices, really are tired of high-decibel escapism. Both are betting that talk, in Vanzant's phrase, has "got the power" to change lives. Now they have to sell that idea to viewers who've got the power to change the channel.