It's official: NBC's Campbell Brown is moving to CNN. Once considered Katie Couric's heir apparent on Today, Brown has been an NBC utility player for a while now, taking the anchor chair at Weekend Today, filing news reports on NBC Nightly News and anchoring on MSNBC, and doing some critically-acclaimed reporting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Last month, Page Six predicted the ouster of Paula Zahn, with Brown as the leading candidate to replace; today, TVNewser reports from an "unimpeachable" source that Zahn is indeed on the outs.
Why would Brown leave NBC, and a news department where she was on a steady path on up? Though she's been out of sight for the last little while, Brown is nonetheless a face that has been seen across timeslots and issues, with unimpeachable (there's that word again!) political chops from her years in D.C. and the smart, no-nonsense demeanor to play in the big leagues (some people call it "gravitas"). That has worked against her at times, where she's been seen as clipped and cold; then again, it's also been suggested that she's quite the opposite (from Radar in September: "Campbell Brown Too Sexy For Today?"). Whatever it was, she didn't get the Today slot — or the wild profusion of high-level offers that were predicted — and, despite her role in the election coverage, business as usual clearly did not cut it. Ergo, CNN — and the chance to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. (Hey, the links show up on YouTube and TVNewser just the same, anyway.)
Meanwhile, poor Zahn has taken a ratings drubbing in the competitive 8pm slot up against Bill O'Reilly on Fox and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Would it even be worth pitting Brown against them right out of the gate? Probably not — which is why it might be smart to move Lou Dobbs and his demo-heavy audience to 8 and give Brown a fighting chance in the 6pm slot. Meanwhile, NBC was pushing (and pushing) Amy Robach as a Brown substitute, which, given their prescience on the rest of it, seems just as possible as anything else. If so, Robach had better buck up; between sleeping in her car for a story, filing umpteen times from the White House lawn and reporting from New Orleans rumpled and unshowered during Katrina, Brown is a hard act to follow.
Photo: www.tusc.kent.edu