At 'American Idol,' Simon Stays

NBC and creator Mark Burnett clearly are looking for a way to refresh the reality series. While remaining television's most upscale nonscripted program, it has been steadily losing viewers and is down to about 10.5 million now; it finished its first season with an average of nearly 21 million.

In yesterday's announcement, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said the California backdrop and The Donald's West Coast business interests and relationships will provide "an exciting new flavor for the series next season."

Trump, with his usual flair, added in a statement, "I could never have imagined that firing sixty-seven people on national television would actually make me more popular, especially with the younger generation."

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And suddenly, the Men of Katie Couric are all officially lined up.

First there's Steve Capus, who, NBC News announced yesterday, has been named permanent president of the division -- he's the man in charge of Keeping Katie Happy.

Capus, who became acting news president when Neal Shapiro left in September, had been senior VP since June and before that executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," starting in May 2001 and working with both Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams as anchors. That after a turn as exec producer of MSNBC's evening newscast with Williams.

Then over at CBS, there's Sean McManus, the recently named president of that network's news division -- a consummate dealmaker who will try to lure Couric to the network to anchor its evening newscast.

And now there's Rome Hartman, whom McManus yesterday named executive producer of the aforementioned newscast, which would become Katie's new kingdom.

But Hartman, who graduated from Duke in 1977, exactly like McManus -- I mean, what are the odds, really? -- will get to do so much more than just executive-produce the newscast that has been mired in third place for years and is in a state of controlled disarray, with Bob Schieffer filling in for the deposed Dan Rather in a stretch that soon will redefine the meaning of "temporary."

Specifically, reporting directly to McManus, Hartman will "serve as an advisor to him on other elements of organization and news gathering, including evaluation and deployment of correspondents and producers and talent recruitment," according to CBS News's announcement.

Hartman succeeds Jim Murphy, who executive-produced the evening newscast for six years, which, believe it or not, is longer than any other executive producer in the CBS evening newscast's 50-year history. McManus said in a statement that he and Murphy "will continue to discuss his future role at CBS News."

Hartman has been a producer at "60 Minutes" since 1991 and produced more than 100 reports for the show -- a feat accomplished by only four others in the show's 37-year history.

Before joining "60 Minutes," Hartman was the senior producer for the "CBS Evening News" here after a stint as CBS News's White House producer, covering Ronald Reagan's second term and the first year of the George H.W. Bush presidency.