(4 of 5)
As the smoke from that acrid parting clears, ABC executives may ponder whether the diva of the dawn's early light is worth $1 million a year to them at night. Most industry analysts seem to think she is. For one thing, ABC executives hope that her departure from NBC'S Today show will deepen that program's recent ratings slide, to the pleasure and profit of ABC's competing Good Morning, America. NBC may well move fast to replace Walters. Some candidates: Candice Bergen, Betty Furness. Bess Myerson and Shana Alexander.
For another, her presence on the Evening News could make it one of the most profitable news programs on television (though the networks claim to lose money on their total news operations, their accounting systems make it impossible to be certain they do). Television networks can charge advertisers higher rates if a program's audience increases, and a single additional ratings point for the ABC Evening News could be worth as much as $2.7 million a year in extra ad revenue. That alone would mean a 170% profit on the Walters investment. Some television industry experts believe that Walters could be worth as much as two or three extra ratings points to ABC. The experts note that many people will tune in just for the novelty of seeing a woman fill what has until now been a man's job.
Barbara Walters has been struggling to make it in the male-ruled world of television nearly all her adult life. Raised in Brookline, Mass., and Miami, she is the daughter of Nightclub Impresario Lou Walters, who made and lost several minor fortunes during Barbara's girlhood. After Fieldston School, Sarah Lawrence College and a twelve-month marriage to Businessman Bob Katz (annulled; a second marriage ended in divorce last March), she went to work at New York's local NBC TV affiliate, learned the trade, including film editing, and in a year rose to the rank of producer. She left the station, bounced around a number of writing and public relations jobs in and out of television and landed at the Today show as a writer in 1961. Always eager, ready and hardworking, she became an on-camera interviewer within three years and began racking up a notable series of interview coups with Mamie Eisenhower, H.R. Haldeman and Anwar Sadat. NBC belatedly canonized her in 1974 as the show's cohost, along with Jim Hartz.
Walters has elevated the interview to a high art. "She has a relaxed, easy manner," reports NBC News Vice President Don Meaney, who used to be in charge of Today. "She doesn't grill her subjects, therefore she elicits more information and keeps the audience on her side." Adds Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz, who has been interviewed by her several times and is a personal friend: "She always asks the questions most Americans want to know, not just the questions on the minds of the professionals. And she doesn't allow you to get away with a flat statement if there's no substance to it."