Deborah Norville, former ‘Inside Edition’ host, has a brand-new game

CHICAGO — After nearly a half-century of doing television news, Deborah Norville, the former Chicago star who became the longest-serving female anchor in TV history at the nationally syndicated “Inside Edition,” is ready to try something different: game show host.

Norville is now presiding over “The Perfect Line,” a recently launched syndicated game show where the former news anchor cheerfully guides contestants through the trivial pursuit of placing things in the correct order for cash prizes in front of a studio audience.

“My career arc has been phenomenal,” said Norville, 67, during a recent promotional visit to Chicago. “I’ve got nothing but gratitude. But no, I never thought I’d be doing a game show.”

When Norville arrived in Chicago in January 1982, the 23-year-old former beauty queen from Georgia quickly established herself as a rising reporter and anchor at WMAQ-Ch. 5.

By the time she left five years later for a network role in New York at “NBC News at Sunrise,” the telegenic news anchor had become such a local celebrity that then-Mayor Harold Washington declared it “Deborah Norville Week” in Chicago.

But in the ephemeral world of TV news, few would have predicted that Norville was embarking on a four-decade journey to national prominence, surviving an early flameout as NBC “Today” show co-host to become the long-running anchor of the widely syndicated newsmagazine “Inside Edition.”

Norville, who stepped down after 30 years at “Inside Edition” in May, returned to Chicago last week to reflect on her prodigious career and promote her newest and perhaps most surprising gig — matching mics with the likes of Wink Martindale, Gene Rayburn and Pat Sajak as a TV game show host.

“It’s the opportunity to exercise some broadcast muscles that I’ve never flexed before,” Norville said. “Being a game show host is completely different from anything I’ve done before.”

“The Perfect Line,” a new offering from CBS Media Ventures, debuted in September. It challenges four contestants to put a series of five different things — from trivia to pop culture — in the right order to win more than $15,000.

The first season of the show, which airs locally weeknights on WCIU-Ch. 26, was filmed over seven weeks at Trilith Studios near Atlanta, and features the familiar visage of long-tenured news veteran Norville quizzing contestants over such topics as which body-switching movie came out first.

Hint for those playing along at home: “The Hot Chick” preceded “13 Going on 30.”

It is certainly not the course Norville charted when she set off for New York and a career as a network anchor nearly 40 years ago.

“Let’s say I stayed on the ‘Today’ show,” Norville said during a promotional stop Nov. 10 at WCIU, the flagship station of Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting. “I probably would have been the first woman to anchor the evening news.”

While now ancient broadcast history, Norville’s short and rocky tenure at the “Today” show was big news at the time, threatening to derail her career in a swirl of negative publicity.

Norville became anchor of the early morning “NBC News at Sunrise” in January 1987, a lead-in for the network’s signature “Today” show and a launching pad for national exposure.

Within a few months, Norville was doing fill-in work at the “Today” show and she was promoted to full-time news anchor in September 1989. In January 1990, Norville ascended to co-host of “Today,” replacing another former Chicago TV anchor, Jane Pauley, in the coveted morning slot.

The move led to rampant speculation in the media that the younger Norville, then 31, had somehow pushed Pauley out, creating viewer backlash that NBC failed to squelch.

“I’ll never know what was going on in the background, but all I know is that two women who had such a great working relationship and were so supportive of one another were portrayed in the press as having their hands around each other’s necks,” Norville said. “It was untrue, it was unfair and it was hurtful to both of us.”

Depicted as the “other woman” and unable to shake the negative publicity, Norville lasted only one year at the “Today” show amid declining ratings. When Norville took leave to have her first child in February 1991, she never returned to the show and was replaced by her fill-in, Katie Couric.

Norville’s meteoric rise and fall on a national television stage was a devastating blow, both personally and professionally. But in its wake, she built a better life and a noteworthy career, raising three kids with her husband of 38 years, and becoming an enduring national news anchor in the process.

“Did my career take a turn? You bet,” Norville said. “Did it hurt? Oh, my God, I was massively depressed — did-not-get-dressed-for-six-weeks level of depression. And here I am talking about a new national show that I just launched after 30 years of taking another show to No. 1. So guess what? It all worked out. It’s all good.”

Norville’s post-”Today” resume includes eponymous shows on MSNBC and ABC Radio, a stint as a CBS correspondent and anchor, and a remarkable run as host of “Inside Edition.”

Launched in 1989 with inaugural host David Frost, “Inside Edition” is the nation’s longest-running syndicated newsmagazine program. Norville, who succeeded Bill O’Reilly as host in 1995, anchored the show for 30 years before announcing her exit in April. While ratings declined in recent years, the CBS Media Ventures show was still drawing about 3.5 million daily viewers when Norville decided to end her tenure.

Last month, Norville was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 52nd annual Daytime Emmy Awards as the longest-serving female anchor in American TV history.

Not content to rest on her laurels, Norville opted for a radical late-career departure as host of “The Perfect Line,” which is also produced by CBS Media Ventures.

After seeing the pilot with Norville, Neal Sabin, vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting, was among the first to sign up for the new game show, which airs at 7:30 p.m. weeknights on WCIU, a repository of syndicated talk shows, judge shows, game shows and reruns.

Launched in 1964, Weigel’s portfolio includes national broadcast networks MeTV and H&I, the syndicated radio format MeTV FM, original production such as “Svengoolie” and 50 local TV stations in 29 markets.

Sabin said Norville’s long run at “Inside Edition” gives the new game show a leg up in multiple markets, but her Chicago connection also played into the decision to carry it on The U.

“We know her from her Chicago heritage here,” Sabin said. “She’s an excellent choice for doing this. I think she’s one of those people that kind of has universal appeal.”

Early ratings returns have been very promising, with Chicago viewership for “The Perfect Line” up 12% year-over-year for that time slot in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic in November, Sabin said. The game show it supplanted, “Flip Side” hosted by Jaleel White, now serves as the lead-in to Norville’s new vehicle.

While “The Perfect Line” is a long way from anchoring the “NBC Nightly News,” Norville is far from the first to make the transition from newscaster to game show host.

John Charles Daly, an accomplished CBS Radio correspondent credited with breaking the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, went on to greater fame as the 17-year host of the seminal early TV game show, “What’s My Line?”

Alex Trebek, the longtime host of “Jeopardy,” got his start as a newscaster at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in the 1960s before migrating south of the border. After hosting several short-lived game shows, Trebek took the reins of a newly launched syndicated version of “Jeopardy!” in 1984, a role he held until just weeks before his death in 2020.

Meredith Viera was a correspondent for “60 Minutes” and co-anchor for “CBS Morning News” before becoming host of the syndicated version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in 2002.

Even Sajak, the Chicago-born, longtime host of “Wheel of Fortune,” who retired in 2024, started as a TV weatherman in Los Angeles.

For Norville, shooting promos Monday in the Weigel studios on North Halsted Street in front of a screen airing the campy “Svengoolie” show, her return to Chicago in a very different role is, in the end, a triumph of perseverance.

If nothing else, after 50 years on TV, nobody can ever call Norville a broadcasting flash in the pan.

“I worked really hard for a very long time,” Norville said. “I have been in broadcasting since I was 17 years old. I am no longer 17, but I love broadcasting, and I really believe in broadcasting.”