Dick Ebersol’s Back on the Fast Track : Suddenly, a one-time ‘Saturday Night Live’ executive is a force in NBC’s sports and news departments

“Willard, buddy,” says Dick Ebersol, smooth and confidential on the phone to “Today” show weatherman Willard Scott.

It’s still two weeks before Ebersol officially takes over as the NBC executive in charge of “Today,” but he’s already working the phones from his Rockefeller Center Office. It probably won’t be long before “Today” posters are added to the collection of TV posters that he keeps in his office. All are shows that Ebersol has had a hand in: “Saturday Night Live,” “Wide World of Sports,” “Friday Night Videos” and the wrestling program “Saturday Night’s Main Event.”

From his days as a long-haired vice president shepherding an unruly “Saturday Night Live” through the corporate brass, Dick Ebersol has made a career of succeeding in surprising places. “I don’t buy into this notion that you have to have an identity card that labels you as any one thing in television,” says the 42-year-old Ebersol. “I define myself as a TV person with curiosity about the world.”

Today, the TV world is curious about Dick Ebersol. In April, seemingly out of nowhere, he was named president of NBC Sports. Then last month, Ebersol--who has no traditional hard-news experience--was given the additional title of senior vice president of NBC News, and he officially took charge Wednesday. His plum assignment: day-to-day control of “Today,” the top-rated morning-news show.

The appointment of Ebersol, a close friend of both “Today” host Bryant Gumbel and NBC entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff, comes at a time when some NBC News employees are expressing unhappiness with the style and budget cuts of NBC News president Michael Gartner. Add to that the fact that TV is experimenting with new forms of “reality” programming that hopscotch the lines between news, sports and entertainment--and you’ve got Dick Ebersol as a man to watch. “Everyone is wondering about Ebersol,” says one NBC executive. “He’s perceived as being on the fast track to running NBC News.”

Minor-league sports scores on “Today”? Hulk Hogan as White House correspondent? Don’t look for it, says Ebersol. As he points out, his double duty is not unprecedented. Ebersol’s old boss, former ABC sports chief Roone Arledge, created “Nightline” and other innovative news programs as head of ABC news.

“When Roone came in, people were wondering when Howard Cosell would start anchoring ‘World News Tonight,’ ” says Ebersol. “Well, Howard has retired, and Roone is seen as the senior executive in TV news. . . . I’m not some graduate of the Joe Schmo school of sports or variety shows. The straight line through my career is live television, whether seeing the right spin on a sports event or getting the right producers to cut news footage.”

Although “Today” remains the No. 1 network morning-news show, the gap between it and ABC’s “Good Morning America” has narrowed recently. With the unauthorized disclosure last spring of host Bryant Gumbel’s analysis of the show, including a brusque criticism of weatherman Scott as a hogger of air time, “Today’s” ratings dipped briefly. “The show needed innovation and new leadership,” says NBC’s Tartikoff. “It seemed to be running on previous momentum.”

In today’s increasingly star-driven newscasts, Ebersol adds diplomacy with on-air talent to the executive’s resume. “Bryant and Willard have two different philosophies: Willard the showman and Bryant the perfectionist, driving himself to do the best interview,” says Ebersol. “I like to think that I might have been able to throw a warm blanket over the controversy if I’d been there at the time.”

Before he had begun the job officially, Ebersol was already dropping by the “Today” control room during the early-morning broadcast, meeting senior producers and “hearing the thoughts” of Gumbel, co-host Jane Pauley and Scott about the program. “I had a meeting with him where he acted as if he had nothing else on his agenda besides seeking my views about the show,” says Pauley. “Bryant and Willard are up (emotionally), and there’s a general feeling that Dick represents a new cycle--that we don’t have to cede No. 1 to someone else.”

“Today” staffers are hopeful that Ebersol’s high profile will bring them additional financial resources from an ever-competitive pie. “Ebersol is the kind of guy who has to succeed at whatever he does,” says one news executive. “He’ll be a financial advocate for the show.”

Gumbel declined to speak about Ebersol. But NBC sources say that having Ebersol overseeing the show puts a friend between Gumbel and NBC News president Gartner. “Bryant didn’t like Gartner, and he thought the ‘Today’ show was getting short shrift,” says one NBC News source.

Ebersol bridles at the suggestion that his friendship with Gumbel got him the job. “Bryant never knew that I had any interest in being involved in the ‘Today’ show,” he says. “I think he and Brandon probably figured that sports was what I wanted.”

The son of a lawyer from Litchfield, Conn., Ebersol was one of those ‘50s kids who literally waved to the rest of their generation from the studio window of the old “Today” show. “When I was 9 years old, my father brought me to the ‘Today’ show studio, and I saw Dave Garroway do the show through a window. When (NBC chief executive) Bob Wright offered me the presidency of NBC Sports in April, I said I had this one other dream aside from running sports, which was to run the ‘Today’ show. Gartner and I started talking about things we might do together, and we resolved ourselves to go ahead on the ‘Today’ show.” They’re already working on their first joint venture between news and sports--several upcoming documentaries along the lines of Tom Brokaw’s recent documentary about black athletes.

“It’s a great relationship,” says Gartner. “Dick is smart and decisive, and he likes to try new things.” Despite rumors that the 50-year-old Gartner may leave, he says, “I plan to be here until I retire.”

The other intense TV image in Ebersol’s memory was the premiere of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” in the 1960s. “I was a frustrated athlete. . . . When I saw ‘Wide World,’ I understood that Arledge was doing something new--taking sports events and turning them into stories seen through the eyes of the competitors. When I went to the LeMans car race in 1965, 800,000 Frenchmen were watching the race--and I was looking around for the ‘Wide World’ crew so I could get hired as a gofer. I wanted in--and that’s how I got in.”

Hired as an Olympics researcher in 1967, Ebersol became Arledge’s assistant and later became director of program development for ABC Sports. At ABC he produced numerous sporting events for “Wide World of Sports” before being hired away by NBC in 1974 to be director of late-night programming. “Herb Schlosser (then president of NBC) had offered me the job of being No. 2 at NBC Sports,” says Ebersol. “I wasn’t ready to compete with Roone and I wasn’t sure that NBC was going to go after the big sports events. I turned the job down, but Schlosser made up his mind that NBC needed a ‘youth movement’ among its executives, so he offered me the job of running late-night.”

In 1975, wearing thick glasses and a hippie haircut, Ebersol pitched the NBC affiliates on a new late-night comedy show called “Saturday Night Live.” “I was guaranteed the 11:30 p.m. time slot, a year to get the show ready, and at least six months on the air,” Ebersol said. As the network’s youngest vice president at 28, Ebersol is credited with being the network brass who let “SNL” be “SNL” while producer Lore Michaels focused more on the creative side. “Dick ran interference between us and the network,” says “SNL” writer Al Franken. “He ran a well-structured ship so the show could be as loose as possible.”

But according to “Saturday Night,” a backstage book by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, there were strong differences between Michaels and Ebersol over how much creative credit Ebersol took for the show. Says Franken, “I think they’re way beyond that now.”

In 1981, Ebersol returned to “SNL” as executive producer, replacing producer Jean Doumanian and staying till 1985, during the Billy Crystal and Eddie Murphy eras. The show made Murphy a star, but overall it was not compared favorably with the original. Still, says Tartikoff, “As far as I’m concerned, Dick saved the show.” Ebersol then took his series commitments from NBC, part of his business deal for producing “SNL,” and started his own independent production company. Before being named head of NBC Sports, Ebersol was a successful producer, with “Friday Night Videos,” “Saturday Night’s Main Event” and “Later With Bob Costas.”

Married to actress Susan St. James of “Kate & Allie,” Ebersol lives in a Colonial-style compound that would do credit to the Kennedys: The troop includes their sons, Charlie, 6, and Willie, 2, and her two children, Sunshine and Harmony, by a previous marriage. Her parents live in a guest house on the property; his parents live down the road. “Susan has just gutted the main house and put up a tent over the garage where we all eat,” he says. “People accuse me of taking this job to avoid the renovations.”

If he is still formulating his plans for “Today,” Ebersol already has moved quickly in sports. Last spring he fired NBC sports executive producer Mike Weisman, replacing him with CBS Sports’ Terry O’Neil, a long-time colleague. O.J. Simpson and former San Francisco 49er Coach Bill Walsh have been signed up as analysts for NBC’s National Football League coverage. And, besides Wimbledon and other events, NBC is experimenting with some unusual sports programming, such as a series on boxing’s best bouts, and a TV movie based on “Joe D. and the Blonde,” Roger Kahn’s book about Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.

But don’t get Ebersol started on losing major-league baseball to CBS, which has sold off its music and publishing businesses, and is flush with cash. “How can people write that CBS ‘won’ baseball?,” he says vehemently. “They’re going to lose a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars over the next four years!”

With the increased competition for rights to sporting events by the networks, cable and other sources, NBC has made its own $400-million investment for the rights to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. That compares to the $300 million that NBC paid for the rights to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. But last year’s ratings fell below those guaranteed to Summer Olympics’ advertisers, and it was reported that NBC had to provide as much as $70 million in extra commercials to advertisers to make up for those low ratings.

To offset the cost to the 1992 Summer Olympics, Ebersol says, NBC will offer a new pay-per-view package, as yet unannounced, with a consortium of cable operators. “One of the complaints of fans for various events is that they don’t get to see the event all the way through in the Olympics coverage,” he says. “This way, viewers will be able to see three different events channels.”

Which brings us back to news. Supporting Gartner in the budget cutbacks, Ebersol says, “If someone hadn’t come along and grabbed control in terms of finances, this place would have been faced in three or four years with whether or not to be in this business. I’m not saying that news has to make a profit, but we can’t subsidize something out of guilt.”

Would Ebersol want the tough job of running NBC News? “No. And, most of all, I don’t want to be president of NBC News and NBC Sports. You can’t do both. And nothing would get me to give up doing the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992. Does that leave me a little opening after that?” He laughs. “Post-Barcelona will be post-Barcelona.”