Austin360 blogs > TV Blog > Archives > 2007 > July > 09 > Entry
Katie and CBS News: Heading to Splitsville?
It’s only been a year — just a blink-of-an-eye in the glacial, change-resistant world of network news — but Katie Couric’s stint as The First Solo Anchor of a Network Evening Newscast already looks wobbly.
In an interview with New York magazine released over the weekend, Couric admitted there are days when she wonders what the heck she was thinking when she left NBC’s “Today” at the height of her popularity and moved to the third-place “CBS Evening News.”
Amid deafening hoopla, the $15-million-a-year Couric and her perky persona debuted last September with a revamped newscast that more closely resembled her “Today” format. She wore casual clothes and greeted the audience with “Hi, everyone.” She popped out from behind her anchor desk to chat with guests, and she introduced “everyday people” opinion segments to the broadcast.
CBS chief Leslie Moonves, who had lured Couric away from “Today,” dangled the opportunity to dramatically shake up the stodgy network newscast format and bring hordes of younger viewers to CBS as result.
More than 13 million viewers welcomed her to the evening news last fall.
But that audience fell to 5.5 million in May. CBS is now far behind ABC’s “World News,” which draws about 8 million viewers, and NBC’s “Nightly News,” which has slightly less than ABC.
New “CBS Evening News” executive producer Rick Kaplan now promises a return to more traditional hard news, apparently agreeing with former CBS anchor Dan Rather’s assessment that the newscast under Couric had been “dumbed down” and “tarted up.”
Couric told New York magazine that the anchor job “would have been less appealing” to her if she had known the dramatic changes promised would be so quickly abandoned.
Will CBS ditch Couric for a more traditional anchor this fall? It could happen. Couric is planning to do more work for “60 Minutes,” which could mean she’s planning to spend less time on the “Evening News.”
If that happens, who would step into the seat once warmed by Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather?
CBS doesn’t have a Charlie Gibson waiting in the wings — a comfy, familiar presence who can slip right into the job virtually unnoticed. But it could tap Anderson Cooper, who (perhaps because of the gray hair and CNN resume) has a hard-news aura about him.
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By austinights
July 9, 2007 2:20 PM | Link to this
Last I recall Stone Phillips was also looking for a job. Why don't we just put on an old episode of Seinfeld or Friends? The news is dubbed over with dribble anyway - one sided depending on who the owner happens to be. And you start to wonder if local radio man Alex Jones is wrong when he gives his own perspectives - things that make you go hmmmm?