Charlie Gibson Stepping Down 12/18

[BRNout]

Trouble here is that a lot of us are having a VERY hard time believing that Sawyer is the best choice for the job. ABC should have, and could have, picked a better candidate. Their ratings have eroded since Charlie began hosting and they will crater with Diane. In the end, it'll be NBC by a wide margin followed by ABC with Katie still in the rear. The combined viewership of evening news will sag even faster than it has. Rather than being competitive with NBC, they will soon be competitive with CBS. Truly a race to the bottom.

Oh, well, gee, the message board posters think it's a bad choice. Quick, rescind the offer! We all know our collective brainpower can never be wrong. :

Much like the proverbial million monkeys eventually coming up with the works of Shakespeare, a collection of us, be we amateur interested observers, wanna-bes or never-weres, can make grand predictions when we know there's no way to disprove a theory. "Sink faster than they would have?" Beautiful. Since we won't know what would have happened with anyone else, and we can reasonably surmise that an ever-more-fractured media environment will lead to generally smaller slices of the pie compared to some imagined glory days when there only were two or three choices, um, duh, when the numbers gradually decrease across the board, it doesn't make anyone here claire voyant (any more than watching storm clouds on the horizon and guessing rain is coming makes one a meterologist).

Not sure about you Homer, but I do have a little experience in this area - albeit on a local level. Some of the posters here do as well. But that's neither here nor there.

Sadly, there's not even a chance that ABC "did good" by choosing Diane for this job.

Anyhow, it's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But, I'll remind you of this discussion when she loses a quarter of Charlie's audience. This thread may not even be buried by then.......

 

[imhomerjay]

All of which conveniently ignores that anyone jumping into that slot could suffer the same fate; we'll never know. And because we don't know, it likewise means we don't know if said mythical better replacement would do worse. Simply unknowable information, hot air here to the contrary. Time and time again, portions of audiences show they simply don't like change, regardless of who's coming on board.

 

[searadiofreak]

I think we have finally reached a point where this is all going to become academic. The evening network newscasts are on life support. (I know, this has been said for atleast two decades), but I think their time is coming to an end. The affiliates can make more money during these half-hour slots, and the networks don't want to give that up. I fully expect deals to be made between the affiliates and the networks. Share the content, share the profits. This is the best way to go. Perhaps even short "national" segments from the national anchors, atleast until they become irrelevant, which in time they will. Evening news will continue, the format and the content origin will change. My prediction is we won't see half hour network news shows as they exist today by 2012.

 

[DToTheJ]

The word on the blogs is whether or not Stephanopoulos is a "good fit" on "GMA."

Meanwhile, it is also being reported that "Nightline's" Terry Moran - and not Jake Tapper - would be the favorite to replace Stephanopoulos on "This Week."

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Not to beat this horse to death, but I still maintain that Sawyer was not the best choice to replace Gibson.

I point to the 2008 election coverage as an example. She didn't add anything to that broadcast.

She is also perceived as talking down to the audience instead of talking to them. And finally we have the Peter Principle here.

Another point: Gibson is 66 years old. Sawyer is in her 60s. Not to sound like I am touting age as a factor, but how long does ABC think Sawyer will stick around to anchor the evening news?

Brian Williams at NBC might be laughing now, but with Comcast taking over that network, Williams might not be breaking out the champagne just yet because who knows what direction that company will go when it comes to the future of NBC and especially its news operation.

 

[kms575]

ABC will never have another Peter Jennings, that's for sure. He was irreplacable.