New Today Set Needs Some Tweaking

It was a great idea: come back from Katie Couric's widely-watched departure with a new set, a new attitude and new future.

But the Today's show's decision to broadcast from an intricately-designed outdoor set over the summer while workers revamp their streetside Studio 1A, hit some serious potholes today, in the form of street noise and knuckleheaded fans.

Bombshell newsreader Natalie Morales seemed to suffer the most during today's inaugural broadcast outside, drowned out alternately by passing traffic, the noise of some nearby machine and fans who kept screaming during her newsbreaks. (this photo shows American Idol finalists Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee perfoming this morning in the new digs)

When NBC first announced it would use the airconditioned, open-air set for this summer -- a holdover from its coverageof Olympics in Italy and Greece -- I wondered what would happen during a rainstorm. But it seems their biggest problem right now is the street noise that is so uniquely New York.


Good luck getting past that one, guys...