Nobody Likes Matt Lauer

March 14, 2013 / Posted by:

Earlier this week, Matt Lauer tried to convince everyone that he’s not the one who put Ann Curry on a bus headed straight for ByeBitchville and he should get 0% of the blame for the way her firing went down. Matt admitted that NBC didn’t handle it right and he also said that he tried to get them to give her more time as co-host. Matt’s damage control campaign came 9 months too late. The New York Times says that Matt is only trying to wash away the skid marks from his image now, because his popularity is falling faster than the hairs on his head.

Last month, staff members from Today and executives from NBC got together to talk about what they learned from focus groups. What they learned is that most people answered “HELL!” when asked where in the world do they want Matt Lauer to go to next? The viewers didn’t exactly come out and say that they’d rather get a pap smear from a porcupine than watch Matt Lauer, but they did say, “What matters most is the anchor connection to the audience; what we need to work on is the connection.” Translation: WE HATE MATT LAUER!

Good Morning America kicked Today off of its morning show throne last April and that’s when Matt Lauer’s popularity started to drop. The Times says that when Ann was fired, Matt’s popularity really went down the toilet.

Mr. Lauer’s Q Score — a measure of likability, treated as gospel by the TV industry — has fallen by more than half since he was paired with Ms. Curry in June 2011. It was a 19 that September; by this January it was a 9.

For the first time his counterpart on “Good Morning America,” George Stephanopoulos, has a higher score. For Mr. Lauer “the drop started happening in the beginning of 2012, and it’s slowly eroded since then,” said Henry Schafer of Marketing Evaluations, the company that surveys thousands of viewers to come up with the scores.

Several people who work for Today told the Times that Matt’s contract will not be renewed when it expires in 2014. A rep for Today told EW that they aren’t firing Matt and he can stay as long as he likes. What they mean by that is they’re not going to renew his contract, but they’re going to let him say that he’s quitting, because he wants to spend more time with his wife, children and side pieces.

I’ve said this before, but Ann never worked as co-anchor. I liked her when she was telling me about Syria, but I didn’t like her when she was sucking on the air that Brad Pitt exhaled. Ann needed to go and the rest of them need to go to. Fire Matt! Fire Al! Fire Atlanta (or whatever her name is)! Fire all of them! Replace them all with kittens. Kittens work for cheap, they aren’t smug and they won’t fuck all the interns.

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