There are worse things to be than a foxy young woman without kids—unless you want to score a co-anchor slot on NBC's Today Show. Despite widespread reports that Campbell Brown, co-host of the top-rated morning show's weekend edition, was on the very short list of potential successors for the CBS-bound Katie Couric, a source who was involved in NBC's decision making process tells Radar Brown never really had a shot, on account of her youth, looks, and, especially, her lack of kids.

According to the source, network executives considered Brown, who is also a regular correspondent on NBC Nightly News and a former White House correspondent, at least as qualified as any other contenders, and possibly the best-suited to the demands of the show's news-driven 7 a.m. hour. Nevertheless, NBC brass concluded that Today's core audience of stay-at-home moms would have trouble relating to a female host without rugrats of her own, banter about kids and spouses being as essential a part of Today's mix as cooking segments and Al Roker. (In fact, Brown wasn't even an honest woman until April, when she wed Fox News analyst Dan Senor.)

Then there's Brown's age, 38, and her attractiveness. While it's perfectly acceptable in prime time to pair a hottie like Jennifer Aniston with a schlub like David Schwimmer (cf. Courtney Thorne-Smith and Jim Belushi, Kevin James and Leah Remini), morning TV viewers, explains the source, don't want to be intimidated by an anchor's looks.

At any rate, that was the lesson the network took from the fiasco that was Deborah Norville's succession of Jane Pauley. Beauty is fine, but only if it's of the faded variety—a prime reason 60-year-old Diane Sawyer seems only to gain in popularity on ABC's Good Morning America. Apparently 52-year-old Meredith Vieira passes that test as well: reviewing Vieira's first Today broadcast, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley—the same writer who shredded Couric for showing off her legs—wrote, "Even with sagging skin and rippling smile lines, she looks amazingly pretty and vibrant on camera." Just not too pretty.