Nancy O'Dell takes over for Mary Hart on ET!

[DaytimeFan]

From PEOPLE:

"Mary Hart is preparing to bid farewell to Entertainment Tonight – and Nancy O'Dell has been named as her successor.

"I remember watching Entertainment Tonight when it first premiered and dreaming about working for the show someday," O'Dell says. "I am honored to be the one chosen to fill a TV legend's seat and I hope I can do her proud!"

Over the summer, Hart, 60, announced her plans to leave the show in 2011 after nearly 30 years on ET.

"Leaving this job was not an easy decision, but knowing I will pass the baton to Nancy O'Dell makes that decision much easier," Hart said Monday. "Nancy is a talented and respected entertainment correspondent. We have spent many years working on opposite sides of the celebrity battlefield and I know the show will flourish with Nancy as co-anchor."

O'Dell, 44, who served as co-anchor of Access Hollywood for 13 years, will join ET as a special correspondent in January. She'll then take on the role of co-host, alongside Mark Steines, after Hart finishes out her final season on the show."

I am so, so, relieved. Nancy O'Dell has class and integrity, she quit Access Hollywood after taking a dislike to the tone of the show. Thank the lord it wasn't Samantha Harris or Lara Spencer.

I will miss Mary Hart, she is an icon and nobody will ever fill her high heels, but she has had an amazing 30 year ride which will never be upstaged. I wish Mary well in whatever she does. I hope Vanity Fair picks her up as a Contributing Editor, it's the right venue for her.

[bellcurve]

Not the biggest Nancy O'Dell fan, but I respect this bitch because she had this in the works for quite awhile. She's still hot, had a huge fan following, and you know it hurts Billy Bush to have Nancy join the #1 entertainment news show.

Hopefully, Nancy will have some control over the content because ET makes Access look like the New York Times. ET needs to save the trashy [[email protected]#$%^&*] for The Insider.

And at least it wasn't Jann Carl. You can tell that hag's been angling for Mary Hart's gig for years.

[DaytimeFan]

Hasn't Jann Carl been gone from ET for a year or two now? I didn't think she ever had a chance, she was always the B List correspondent. In my mind, Nancy is the ONLY person who could succeed Mary Hart. She DID have it in the works for a while, she got out of Access Hollywood quite some time ago and was biding her time. Smart lady.

I think ET *must* change its tone because it's lowered itself in recent years to levels that it never should have touched. ET was always above reproach, now, not so much. And yet, I much prefer it to Access Hollywood because I haven't been able to stomach any of the people who host the damn thing.

[alexisfan07]

I'm glad for Nancy but I don't think this is a job anyone should EVER aspire to. I just don't see the value in any of those celebrity news shows. Don't they have anything better to do with their lives? JMO.

[Cheap21]

Haha, shows how much I know. Im surprised Hart is still doing this bc I thought O'Dell replaced her a long time ago

[JackPeyton]

LOL, i would take it and its fat ass pay check in a heartbeat.

[DaytimeFan]

Celebrity journalism is something I feel quite strongly about because the business has changed, radically and negatively, in the last decade.

For decades, ET and PEOPLE were 'it'...they had legitimacy and had a certain standard. Then Access Hollywood, EXTRA, Us Weekly, TMZ, Perez Hilton, STAR, Life & Style and all the rest infiltrated and saturated the market. Soon, the gold standards set by ET and PEOPLE had to be lowered in order to stay competitive. Socially, the United States has had a really sick obsession with fame develop in the last decade as the dawn of reality television and online content has made everything accessible.

This accessibility is what made ET and PEOPLE interesting, they gave you a glimpse, but they kept a little distance, a little mystery. The mystery and the magic is all gone now. I haven't read a PEOPLE in years, nor have I watched much ET. The only celebrity magazine I can read is Vanity Fair and it isn't exactly in the same milieu.

Mary Hart, from my perspective, is the last of the golden age, the last celebrity journalist who could get an A List interview, who knew all the greats and who moves in the same circles as the CEO's of the studios and the socialites of Beverly Hills. Mary Hart was a real peer to many of these actors, someone they grew comfortable with and respected. Mary Hart has cache.

Everyone else, sad to say, is an employee who deals with the demands of the Hollywood corporate machine.

[JackPeyton]

But, hasnt legit News gone just as far down, perhaps even lower?

[bellcurve]

Shows how much I know as well. Jann was starting to dress, look, and act like a low-rent Mary Hart.

ET can stay classy and still be number one. There are people out there who are sick of hearing about Teen Mom, The Hills, Endless Dancing with the Stars recaps and tragedies, etc. CBS/Paramount should just bring back Hard Copy(my fave!), scrap the Insider and its useless panel, and just go all out trash on that show to contrast ET/Insider. ET's brand has been destroyed by trashy bulletins and stories.

[DaytimeFan]

Absolutely and that doesn't make either genre deteriorating excusable. ET was a good example of treating a 'light' topic seriously and with integrity. When ET covered the OJ Simpson case, it gave CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC a real run for their money.

Absolutely right. ET has been number 1 for all these years for a reason: it had class. It needs to go back to that.

[bellcurve]

I'm just happy for Nancy O'Dell. She gets to stick it to Billy Bush! Good for her.

[alexisfan07]

Loved hearing your perspective, thank you.

[dragonflies]

Great replacement for Mary Hart! AH wasn't the same when Nancy left now I can't wait to see her on ET

[Money]

To me all these entertainment shows are the same - Access Hollywood and ET have been in direct competition for years and they all seem interchangeable. DaytimeFan, I was surprised that Nancy left AH because of the tone considering AH is almost an exact replica of ET. I use to love ET back in the day since they got ALL the major stars and the best scoops but in recent years all the other entertainment shows reported the same stories and ET lost it's identity.

I'm a huge fan of Jackie Collins' novels especially when everyone knows she's writing about real Hollywood people using fictitious names. One of the "characters" in her book had an entertainment journalist who couldn't wait to get into real journalism because she was getting older, she knew people within the industry had zero respect for celebrity journalists, and the amount of ass kissing both she and the studio had to give to these stars to be granted interviews were insane. I always wanted to know who she was really talking about.

Are Nancy and Billy feuding? I can't stand Shaun Robinson and her fake ass.

[DaytimeFan]

Nancy left AH very pointedly because of the tone of the show and how it was getting tasteless and going for the jugular with that nasty Billy Bush leading the charge. Nancy does have some famous friends (Halle Berry being the one who jumps out at me instantly, but there are others as well) and her leaving AH was very intentional because she didn't want to alienate anyone. The only one with any class on AH is Tony Potts who had a short stint at ET before joining AH (Tony saw the writing was on the wall at ET, he didn't have a shot against Bob Goen and Mark Steines).

ET has absolutely lost its identity and it's up to the executive producer, Linda Bell Blue, to change the direction of the show. Hiring Nancy O'Dell is a positive step. Nancy and Mark Steines will make a very good team. It says something that they didn't hire from within the CBS family with either Samantha Harris or Lara Spencer. Neither of them have Nancy's class and poise (though don't get me wrong, I think Lara Spencer is a blast, she's one of Kathy Griffin's friends! Samantha Harris, on the other hand, comes off as a complete moron.)

ET needs a revamp. They need to revamp the set, revamp the opening (bring back that theme!) and fire Kevin Frasier and Samantha Harris, neither of whom have ever had the chops to be on this show. Then, it's time to crawl on beds of broken glass (if that's what it takes) and sign Lisa Canning and Chris Booker as replacements. Leonard Maltin can stay and his role could stand to be expanded.

Which Jackie Collins novel was that? I'd love to read it! My bet is the character is based more on Barbara Walters than anyone else.

Nancy and Billy Bush never really got along, Nancy found Billy very nasty. And +1 on Shaun Robinson's fake bullsh*t. I can't stand her.