all the news female viewers can use

NBC is flooding the zone, synergistically:

If the NBC Nightly News series “The Secret to Her Success,” produced in partnership with iVillage, seemed like a transplant from the newly installed estrogen-fueled fourth hour of Today, anchor Brian Williams says it’s simply a coincidence. …

Throughout the week the series — which could have been ripped from the pages of Good Housekeeping or Redbook — has focused on female-centric issues including what medical tests women should have and how to ask for a family-friendly flex time schedule at work. On Wednesday, Ann Curry, the newly minted co-host of Today’s fourth hour, reported on studies that showed friendships have a direct result on women’s health. MSNBC.com ran photos sent in by viewers of themselves with their best friends.

Williams, acknowledging the lack of coincidence, says,

“Call it synergy, call it what you will, but it just made sense.”

Well, sure, if you’re a corporate behemoth trying to attract the wider female TV-viewing audience. But if you’re, say, a TV viewer interested in getting 19 minutes’ worth of information about the wider world on a program called NBC Nightly News, it means that you just might say to yourself: “What the hell is this?” and switch over to Charlie Gibson over on ABC.