THE DAWN PATROL.(trends in television morning shows)

Katie Couric still finds it surprising when people come up to her and say things like "You're in my bedroom every morning." But Couric, the co-anchor of NBC's "Today" show, understands the impulse. "People have a very personal relationship with us," she says, referring to herself and her co-anchor, Matt Lauer. For most of the past fifty-three years, "Today" has been the favored companion of morning viewers. It is the most profitable program on any network--its commercials earn about two hundred and fifty million dollars annually, about three times as much as ABC's "Good Morning America" or CBS's "The Early Show." ("Today," which averages six million viewers, earns more because it reaches a larger and younger audience and, unlike its competitors, is on for three hours, not two, on weekdays.) While the networks have been rapidly losing viewers throughout the day--to cable, the Internet, and other distractions--the morning shows have gained them; these shows are "driving network-television news divisions," Jeff Zucker, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group, says, in part because, at the major networks, their profits amount to roughly three-quarters of what the news divisions earn. ("Today" generates another three hundred and fifty million dollars a year for NBC's two hundred local stations.)

"Today" was once a temporary stint for network stars; John Chancellor, Barbara Walters, and Tom Brokaw all took it on, enjoying the exposure but worrying about the format. In the mid-seventies, when Brokaw finished a tour as chief White House correspondent and was offered the "Today" co-anchor spot, he was afraid that all the celebrity chitchat and the cooking demonstrations would undermine his news credentials; he refused to do commercials, as previous anchors had. Bryant Gumbel, who replaced Brokaw in 1982, says, "I always had the feeling the news brass was embarrassed by the variety-show aspects of 'Today' and by the fact that I was not a news guy. I was from sports." Couric, on the other hand, says, "I never saw it as a pit stop."

The variety-show ingredients date from the debut of "Today," in January of 1952. The program was created by the NBC executive Sylvester (Pat) Weaver (who invented the "Tonight Show" two years later). For its first nine years, "Today" was part of the entertainment division and was anchored by Dave Garroway, who was regularly joined on the air by a chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs. On his first day, Garroway promised viewers that the show would "put you in touch with the world," without being "stuffy about it." That mission has remained more or less intact.

The morning programs have always put an enormous premium on the "likability" of their on-air personalities, to an often cloying degree. Couric's audience knows how nervous she is when her children leave for camp, why the Kentucky-born Diane Sawyer, the co-anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America," began a segment by telling the audience, "Y'all are going to meet my big sister," who is "my best friend, my guide," why her co-anchor Charles Gibson talked about his anxieties when his daughter was married, and why Matt Lauer jokes about losing his hair. They all want to be regular folks, despite their multimillion-dollar paychecks. Likability, not news credentials, is their currency. "Morning-show anchors take a very interesting role in people's families," Couric said when we met one morning at a restaurant near Rockefeller Center. "People feel very familial with them, and get very comfortable with them. People don't want too much cynicism. I hope people want intelligent questioning. I hope people want to get to the bottom of issues. I hope people want us to be appropriately challenging. But some people say to me, 'I turn you on in the morning and you always seem like you have a smile on your face and you're happy.' And I'm, like, 'Well, O.K.' Some days, I'm really tired or whatever. But there's a certain reassuring quality about morning television; it reminds people that the world is still in one piece and turning, and here's what people need to know about."

Insofar as a television personality can become an imaginary friend, Couric, the smiling face of "Today" for fourteen years, has managed it. In 1996, she told a Times reporter that the only bad thing ever written about her was that "I had chipmunk cheeks." But, if television viewers begin to feel less fond of Couric, to the network the financial shock could be enormous. And, lately, "Good Morning America" has steadily narrowed the gap between the two programs. (CBS has never seriously figured in the morning competition.) Something has happened to Couric's "likability"; her image has changed. In network focus groups, viewers have complained that she flirts with guests and spends too much time with celebrities. In April, the Times' chief television critic, Alessandra Stanley, wrote, "America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall." Some people who have worked with her have complained--always anonymously--that she can be self-absorbed, that she tries to hog the best interviews, and that she doesn't prepare the way Lauer does. Two of the show's former executive producers, Jonathan Wald and Tom Touchet, have privately told colleagues they thought that the program had become "too Katie-centric," with the staff too focussed on making her happy.

Couric, on being asked about this persistent criticism, said, "I feel like a human pinata. The disappointing thing is no candy is going to spill out!" She laughed, a little tensely, and added, "This may not be a lot of fun, but it goes with the territory, unfortunately, of being successful and female, probably."

In January, 1999, when Sawyer and Gibson first went head to head with Couric and Lauer, "Today" had an advantage of more than two million viewers. By May of this year, "G.M.A." trailed "Today" by an average of about two hundred thousand viewers, and on some days it came in first. Last winter, Jeffrey Immelt, the chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric, NBC's corporate parent, told Jeff Zucker that his foremost priority was to fix "Today."