Miskowiec Named New 'Katie' EP

Previously produced 'Tyra,' 'Ricki' and 'Dr. Drew'

By Paige Albiniak -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/24/2013 10:23:57 AM

Rachel Miskowiec will be the new executive producer of Disney/ABC's Katie when it returns this September for season two, according to Vicki Dummer, executive VP of the ABC Media Group.

"Rachel Miskowiec is an incredibly passionate and experienced veteran of daytime TV," said Dummer. "She is creative, smart and a great leader. Rachel is fearless and competitive, and she truly loves making daytime television. We are very excited to have her join the Katie team as we enter our second season."

Miskowiec is the third executive producer on the freshman talker. She follows Michael Morrison, who took over for Jeff Zucker in January, after Zucker left to run CNN. Another Katie co-EP, Michael Bass, also departed in April, although he has a long working relationship with Zucker and was expected to follow him to CNN.

Other coexecutive producers on the show are Kathy Samuels, who has been with the show since its launch, Matt Strauss and Ethan Nelson. Couric also is an executive producer.

Miskowiec is a daytime vet, having executive produced Warner Bros.' The Tyra Banks Show, for which she won two Daytime Emmys. She's also executive produced Dr. Drew's Lifechangers and OWN's Your Best Life Now. She's also served as senior supervising producer on Twentieth's Judge Hatchett, and supervising producer on Sony Pictures Television's Life & Style. She also spent more than eight years on SPT's The Ricki Lake Show, where she ended her run as supervising senior producer. Most recently, she was a development exec at Telepictures, Warner Bros. Television's first-run production arm.

Katie is wrapping its first season as the leading rookie talker. At a 1.6 live plus same day household ratings average, according to Nielsen in the week ended May 12, the show is only one-tenth of a ratings point ahead of NBCUniversal's rookie, Steve Harvey. Harvey also has been beating Katie in the daytime's key women 25-54 demographic at a 1.0 to Katie's 0.9. That those numbers are so close is significant because Katie's afternoon clearances on ABC owned and affiliated stations were far stronger than Harvey's afternoon clearances on NBC-owned stations.

Deadline first broke this story.