But Lack's biggest, priciest talent, Today's Matt Lauer, provides something of a cautionary tale. With morning news being one of the last mass television markets, its personalities can draw fire as well as ratings.

The Survivor

Andy Lack, the chairman of NBC News, is seen by many of his peers as an old-school newsman in the mold of the late Roone Arledge, the famed ABC News president. Arledge played a major role in establishing ABC News as one of the leading evening newscasts in the 1980s and 90s. He did so in part by hiring big names and high-profile talent—for instance, wooing Diane Sawyer away from CBS News, even though ABC already employed the very visible Barbara Walters. Lack is currently on his second tour at NBC. He joined NBC News in 1993, rose to the top of the news division, then left in 2003 to head up Sony Music. He returned in 2015 in the wake of the scandal involving news anchor Brian Williams, who was revealed to have embellished, among other stories, his experience during an incident in Iraq in 2003.