NBC Makes a Major Overhaul of ‘Today’ Show : Television: Executive Dick Ebersol is sidelined and Joe Garagiola is rehired in an attempt to shore up ratings.

In an attempt to salvage the tattered “Today” show’s image and ratings, NBC said Tuesday that it is bringing back Joe Garagiola as a co-host and has hired “CBS Morning News” co-anchor Faith Daniels.

Additionally, NBC said that Dick Ebersol, the executive responsible for recruiting and promoting newcomer Deborah Norville to take over the show’s co-hosting duties from Jane Pauley, is no longer overseeing the troubled morning program. The network also said it would bring aboard NBC News Pentagon reporter Catherine Couric as a Washington-based national correspondent for “Today.”

The announcement apparently signals to NBC affiliates that NBC News President Michael Gartner is trying to grapple with the problems surrounding “Today,” where ratings, advertising revenue and morale have all nose-dived since Ebersol took control nearly a year ago.

In an unusual mea culpa from a network executive, Ebersol blamed himself for the troubles on “Today” and said that the only solution was to take himself off the show.

“The better part of the last five weeks have been spent arguing it out with management,” Ebersol said in an interview. “I felt it was the necessary thing to do. The events of the last eight to nine months have been a soap opera, and viewers are mad at NBC management. I wanted to send a very clear signal that there was someone who would stand up and take responsibility for these actions and have people realize it was me who precipitated these actions.”

Ebersol was referring to the hiring of Norville, whom he approached last August when she was anchoring “NBC News at Sunrise” about reading the news segments on “Today.” His decision to put her center stage on “Today” created visible tension on the set and motivated Jane Pauley to request that she be transferred off the show that she had co-hosted for 13 years. Norville was painted as the interloper in the hitherto stable “Today” cast, and the show has fallen behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” since she replaced Pauley in January.

But, insisted Ebersol, Norville “has been tarred with a brush and it was me who was holding that brush.”

Network sources maintained that Norville’s position on the show is unaffected by Ebersol’s departure.

The turmoil at “Today” is beginning to hit the bottom line. NBC is now projecting that operating profits for the show will be $8 million less than forecast at the beginning of the year. Gartner hopes to complete a reorganization of NBC News management in time for the network’s affiliates meeting in Washington next month. Last week, he brought back former “Today” show executive producer Steve Friedman to run the “NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw.”

Gartner said research showed that, since Pauley left, viewers have missed “the sense of a family.” He said Garagiola, who will share hosting duties with Norville and Bryant Gumbel, “is not perceived as a threat or some kid on the make. He’s sort of an Uncle Joe.”

In the gone-today, here-tomorrow world of network television, Garagiola had parted ways with NBC in 1988 after 27 years of covering Major League Baseball.

Daniels, who had been at CBS since 1985, will read the news segments on “Today” and will anchor the early-morning show that proceeds it, “NBC News at Sunrise.”

Ebersol will continue as senior vice president of NBC News and president of NBC Sports, where he will focus on the network’s coverage of the 1992 Olympics.

The “Today” shake-up came after a series of meetings and conference calls Monday between Ebersol, Gartner and National Broadcasting Co. President Robert Wright on whether Ebersol should give up control of “Today.”

Initially, sources said, Ebersol had decided to quit Monday but changed his mind that afternoon when word began to leak that he was on the way out. Some suggested that Ebersol’s waffling might have been due to his concern about how the story would play in the press. Ebersol denied ever having changed his mind.

Gartner, however, claimed that he lobbied for Ebersol to stay on the “Today” show. “I tried to get him to change his mind. I value his counsel, and he brings to the table skills I don’t have,” Gartner said in an interview. “But he feels there will be a fresher start if someone else is there.”

A former executive producer of “Saturday Night Live,” Ebersol was put in charge of day-to-day production of “Today” in July, 1989, only 10 weeks after he was appointed president of NBC Sports. During his nearly one-year tenure, however, “Today” has been afflicted by constant turmoil and has fallen behind ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Ebersol’s position overseeing “Today” will not be replaced. Instead, Tom Capra, executive producer of the program, will report directly to Gartner.