QUICK TAKES - Jan. 24, 2009

The heroic tale of Capt. Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger’s safe landing of a US Airways flight on the Hudson River has gotten caught up in the ugliness of the television booking wars.

On Friday, CBS announced that Sullenberger and his crew would give their first interviews to Katie Couric for a piece set to air on “60 Minutes” on Feb. 8. That provoked no small amount of displeasure at NBC’s “Today” show, which had originally booked Sullenberger and his family to appear on the program Jan. 19.

The “Today” interview was postponed at the request of the pilots union, which asked Sullenberger to hold off until federal officials had a chance to further investigate the cause of his plane’s engine failure. But producers had been assured by multiple representatives of the pilot as recently as Thursday that he still planned to give his first interview to the NBC morning show, a network source said.

“What Captain Sullenberger did in the cockpit on flight 1549 was heroic and admirable,” said “Today” spokeswoman Megan Kopf. “Unfortunately, people close to him have not acted nearly as admirably over the past few days. They gave us their word, and then broke their commitment. We wish Captain Sullenberger the best.”

-- Matea Gold