NBC's Jane Pauley, safely away from the woes and slipping ratings of the ``Today'' show she once co-hosted, starts life anew in prime time Tuesday with an appropriately entitled special: ``Changes.'' Her own changes include anchoring a prime-time news series that NBC once said might start this summer. However, it has no executive producer yet and may not arrive until fall or even January, she says. But she doesn't consider this the NBC News version of ``Waiting for Godot.'' ``I think it's very sensible,'' Pauley says of the delay. In her view, ``Corporations don't normally behave sensibly if there is some pressure to put something on the air. But this strikes me as a very rational way to approach a weekly series, and I'm very pleased with that.'' On Saturday, Pauley, who also has been filling in for Tom Brokaw on the ``NBC Nightly News,'' leaves for East Germany to start another documentary on sports there. A few more documentaries lie ahead after that. Tuesday's special is about three people and one couple whose lives are in transition. Work on the first story, about Frank Morgan, a 56-year-old acclaimed jazz saxophonist who spent much of his life in prison, began in December. That was the month that Pauley, her contract extended to 1992, bid adieu to 13 years of predawn wakeups for ``Today.'' She had told its audience in October she was leaving and got a hug then from her successor, Deborah Norville. But since January, ``Today'' hasn't exactly been hugged by viewers, even though Pauley took pains in October to assure them she wasn't at odds with Norville or co-host Bryant Gumbel, whom she called her friends. Although NBC executives say they have no research to indicate it, ``Today'' likely was hurt and ABC's ``Good Morning America'' helped by the turmoil preceding Pauley's decision to leave. Those off-camera troubles last year included the leak of Gumbel's caustic memo criticizing staffers, notably weatherman Willard Scott, and the decision of NBC executives, including ``Today'' vice president Dick Ebersol, to replace veteran ``Today'' news anchor John Palmer with Norville. Although NBC officials have said they expected a dip in ``Today'' ratings when Norville moved up from news anchor to succeed Pauley in January, the dip now is in its third month. ABC's ``Good Morning America'' easily won the important February ratings ``sweeps,'' the results used by TV stations to set their advertising rates. It averaged a 4.5 rating, which was good news for ABC affiliates. No so for NBC affiliates. ``Today,'' according to NBC's estimate, had a 3.65 average in the sweeps _ well below the 4.6 it had in February 1989 when it won the reveille ratings race. Each ratings point now represents 921,000 homes. Pauley, who last year kept a stiff upper lip and never publicly complained about the behind-camera woes at ``Today,'' is sympathetic to its current ratings problems. ``Well, I've been there before,'' she says, harking back to a time when she co-hosted ``Today'' with Brokaw and the Nielsen verdict was that ``Good Morning America,'' then hosted by David Hartman, had become No. 1. ``It was almost a relief when it finally happened,'' she says. ``Because from that moment on, we were able to scramble and get our act together and come back.'' She thinks the same thing will happen again, and that those in charge of ``Today,'' including new executive producer Tom Capra, will ``be able to put together something that comes on pretty strong.'' Pauley laughed uproariously when asked about an upcoming report in the National Enquirer confiding that NBC, on bended knee, had begged her to return to ``Today'' and that she has agreed to interview guests on two of five shows each week, starting in April. ``Totally bogus,'' she said. Her own thoughts about the ``Today'' turmoil and its effect on the show's ratings? ``Obviously, I can't personalize it,'' she said. ``And yet, I think that an explanation is that there were `dislocations,' shall we say, on the `Today' show. ... And I think that bothers people, especially early in the morning. ``It's not just that `Jane is gone.' It's just that there was too much disruption. In the morning, you want, er, regularity.''
