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Katie Continues To Drop

  • Thread starter fred flintstone
  • Start date

Two People Are Happy Katie's at CBS

EOnline:
Couric's Loss, Vieira's, O'Donnell's Gain

Katie Couric's big career move is paying off--for Meredith Vieira and Rosie O'Donnell.

While Vieira and O'Donnell are enjoying healthy ratings in their new TV jobs, Couric is battling the perception that she's not.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20061010/en_tv_eo/20204
Click to expand...

Meanwhile....
Evening news at pre-Couric rankings again

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a month of hoopla and intense competition spurred by the arrival of Katie Couric, the evening news race has settled back into a familiar pattern: NBC first, ABC second and CBS in third place.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061011/tv_nm/news_dc_1
Click to expand...

This is what CBS bought for $5 million a year. Nothing.
All the hype worked. People checked out Katie.
Now they've gone back to whatever they were doing or watching before.

And from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Want younger viewers for the evening news? Ditch the geezer ads, says ABC World News anchor Charlie Gibson.

If networks are serious about luring pre-Social Security eyeballs, they should replace commercials for adult diapers, dentures and "patent medicines" with spots for younger, sexier products, in Gibson's view.
Click to expand...

Good point. CBS puts on Katie (50 in January and almost ready to leave the money demos herself) plus a new set and graphics to lure younger demos but they keep running geezer spots. Sounds like the ads send a clear message: This is your father's newscast. And that makes Katie appear as a Sun City centerfold.

Rook is right (see above): The CBS Katie fiasco does have a lot in common with the CBS David Lee Roth fiasco.
 
It's Barbara Walters all over again. ABC paid
her, what, $1 million in 1976 dollars, and she
and Harry Reasoner never jelled as a team.
Katie's going to wind up doing the same thing
"Baba Wawa" does: occasional specials.

Bob Schieffer was, and is, like an old shoe,
and someone who can both report the news
and do good interviews. Although I still think
John Roberts would have been better for the
long haul, given his and Schieffer's age difference,
I won't be shocked if Schieffer gets called back
to the Evening News--and soon.
 
bpatrick said:
Bob Schieffer was, and is, like an old shoe,
and someone who can both report the news
and do good interviews. Although I still think
John Roberts would have been better for the
long haul, given his and Schieffer's age difference,
I won't be shocked if Schieffer gets called back
to the Evening News--and soon.
Click to expand...

Don't expect to see Schieffer or Roberts back on CBS. Roberts especially after the network passed him by as the evening anchor. He's going to stay at CNN because at least he's getting some decent airtime.

As for Schieffer, his return would humiliate the CBS brass for making the mistake of hiring "Perky."

Be honest here, did anyone expect Couric to be successful? I certainly didn't.

CBS isn't about to cut their losses either...at least right away. I mean who would replace Couric? Maybe if CBS is going after the entertainment venue perhaps they should hire Mary Hart as their anchor.
 
Mark Giardina said:
Be honest here, did anyone expect Couric to be successful? I certainly didn't.
Click to expand...

One of us did. Maybe he still does.
The thread has been moved to Take It Outside but he made a fact-based argument.
Apparently, CBS had some research to go on when they made their decision, too.

But even with all the research, TV programming is a crap shoot.
The main problem is the players can't admit it's a crap shoot.
They like to pretend they are experts and their decisions have some scientific basis.
Look at the number of shows that flop.
The networks have never had great batting averages.

CBS brought in somebody from outside to do something she'd never done before.
Always a risk.
Cronkite was a visible presence on the network before he took over the Evening News.
Then again, so was Rather,
Of course, Cronkite had anchored special events and breaking news coverage.
Rather was a somewhat controversial (and for many, pushy and hard to take) correspondent.
So Rather was doing something he had not done when he took over the Evening News, too.

EDIT]
Peter Jennings fell on his face when ABC let him anchor when he was 26 in an attempt to get young viewers.
He went out and established himself - including working as a co-anchor on World News Tonight - before he took over.

Brian Williams got a lot of warm-up time in the bullpen, filling in for Brokaw and doing his own nightly news on MSNBC.

Brokaw and Chancellor had been hosts of the Today Show when it was more of a serious news show.
And except for Walters, the female co-hosts on the Today Show are still largely "Girl Fridays" - doing light and fluffy stuff like Lee Merriweather and Florence Henderson did. For that kind of job, perky is good.

CBS stated to groom John Roberts and then backed off. But they could have allowed to build the kind of experience and track record which would have given him a chance of success. Instead they went for a name.

[EDIT-sexist comment.]
 
Agreed. I don't expect to see Roberts back
on CBS, didn't even hint that he'd go back to
CBS; I merely said that he would have been
the best in the long run (he's the right age
and he's had plenty of experience filling in
for Rather as well as anchoring the Sunday
news).

As for Schieffer, I think it would serve CBS
right to admit it made a mistake with "Perky,"
and also admit that things were trending upward
while he was interim anchor. True, his age is
a problem, but who else does CBS have? For
the short run, he'd be an improvement over
what they've got now, then maybe they can
put a real, younger journalist in that chair.

Somebody's going to say that my remarks would
give CBS an image of instability, but let's face it:
they don't have the bench strength they had in
the Cronkite era. If it were possible to bring
Douglas Edwards back from the grave, it would
still be an improvement over Katie.

I'm open to anyone's ideas about who could and
should fill Katie's spot.
 
bpatrick said:
I'm open to anyone's ideas about who could and
should fill Katie's spot.
Click to expand...

The people who do the news at 6:00 pm.
 
Go back to Bob, have the news anchored from DC.
There is no need to anchor the evening news from New York, since a studio in New York can look exactly like one in DC, LA, or Peoria.
 
And regardless of the location from which Katie anchors it's an exercise in futility. She puts on her ersatz anchor face and mode.....and goes flop.
 
You Katie haters will HATE this...

Good evening from Madison, Wisconsin...possibly THE most "liberal" populace in the Midwest.
Northampton, Massachusetts on steroids.

At lunch today, I asked the news director of the news-ratings-dominant local CBS-TV affiliate, "How's Katie's impact?"

He grinned, and told me, "HERE, Dan Rather never lost a book."

Sure, "here" is atypical.

But NATIONALLY, what press accounts gleefully reporting that The CBS Evening News has settled-in at #3 rank overall tend-not-to-also-report is that the CBS show is #1 25-54, the most-coveted advertising demographic.

Were the cbsnews.com server stats as accessible as its TV network's ratings, I think we'd see the real story.

Katie herself is the-most-conspicuous-of THREE simultaneous recent changes:

1. The anchor.

2. The innovative multi-platform delivery system. "See it now" goes beyond what any network has done to-date in-terms-of extending brand and content to online, and live radio simulcast. Retirees who typify evening news audience demographics are in-place TV viewers. Median age of Internet "streamies" is a different matter...an audience advertisers NEED. The younger-adult viewers that network newscasts NEED are on-the-go folks who get news online, and listen to lots of radio in-car. One of those advertisers is Microsoft, whose spots you see in Katie's show on TV, and as the pre-roll for streaming video @ cbsnews.com.

3. Style. As I told that news director today, it took me a while to get accustomed to the lower-story-COUNT and longer-story-LENGTH we see on the Katie-era CBS show. Ever since CBS signed her, she's been telling us that TV news as-we've-known-it merely tells WHAT is happening. She's said all along that her aim was to deliver on an opportunity the CBS research demonstrates: Tell us WHAT IT MEANS. Many nights, ABC, CBS, and NBC all do the same story off-the-top. Then, while the ABC and NBC shows move onto their second story, CBS will do a second package on the first story, the what-it-means wrinkle.

Time will tell, measurably, what impact all-three-of-the-above will have.

Where the win-place-and-show numbers are a year from now will mean more than where-the-numbers-were the-week-Katie-AND THESE OTHER CHANGES-debuted...or this week.

And between now and then, there's serendipity.

CBS lost some juice by getting a big story wrong. It happens to all the networks. In a few years, the Bush/National Guard story may be only-as-memorable as that story another network FAKED about SUV roll-overs.

CBS, or either of the other networks, could GAIN major juice...tomorrow, the next day, or next month...by getting a major scoop RIGHT. Competition -- and, post Bush/National Guard, QUALITY CONTROL -- has never been better. The winner is the viewer. And, as Microsoft is already finding out, advertisers.

HC
www.HollandCooke.com
 
"This just in..."

Underlining my point, above, RE multi-platform distribution: See USA Today Page 1B, RE "NBCU 2.0" and 700+ layoffs at the network:

"Executives said Thursday that their NBCU 2.0 initiative will help the TV and movie giant with its transition from analog media to digital, including ventures on the Internet and cellphones."

That describes the CBS News "See it Now" promo you'll see on-air and as the pre-roll to many videos @ cbsnews.com

Just below that USAT article: a piece on Google's skyrocketing profits.

When the NBC story jumps to page 2, they reference NBC snoozing while Murdoch bought MySpace.com

Look for more inexpensive "Deal or No Deal" type programming, which, as USAT reports, "has helped boost traffic at nbc.com dramatically."

All of this Katie sniping may have recreational value here, but watch those two other aspects unfold.
 
The stock market broke 1200.
And "multi-platform delivery systems" (with a new name) has become fashionable again.
It's deja vu, all over again.

Remember "synergy?" That was the idea behind MSNBC, and the AOL take-over of Time-Warner.
Synergy (aka multi-platform delivery systems) was/is one of those ideas that sounds great on paper - and appeals to executive egos.

The same thing with "brand extensions," but brands only extend so far and the brand image must be favorable in the extension's target market. Extensions that ignore this fact fail. CBS' image as your-grandfather's-news-show have little appeal to younger Internet users.

The network Evening News as a programming concept and as a platform is obsolete and should be abandoned.
It can't be saved by a perky face and a website. CBS prime time numbers are better than they've been in years, decades even, and the CBS Evening News is still in the cellar. NBC's Nightly News does better even with Dick Wolf running out of steam, the network laying off 700 people and audience numbers and sales figures at bottom levels.

CBS News' image is old, stodgy and (among some people) biased. CBS Radio has an image and a sound even older and stodgier. In addition, it's news and news-talk stations have audiences skewing as geriatric as the TV Evening News. The radio tie-in reinforces CBS News' geriatric image. Add to that, without the distraction of her perky looks, Katie sounds terrible on the radio. Putting TV news audio on the radio is a desperation move. TV audio replacing radio news broadcasts shows radio as a news medium is beyond intensive care. (Similarly, satellite radio also puts cable news audio on its so-called news channels. The only radio news on satellite is NPR, several hours delayed, on Sirius).

CBS/Viacom also lacks a news/or news-talk cable/satellite TV platform. But then MSNBC hasn't done much for NBC News (or the other way around). And Fox and CNN don't seem hurt by the lack of a broadcast TV network news show. Meanwhile, MSNBC is the most popular news website, while MSNBC-the-cable-channel trails its competition. So much for synergy.

Fox and CNN have a better grasp on the future: Cable/satellite news plus news feeds to local stations. And they save all that money CBS pays for a perky face to play Ted Baxter.

It's fine to have a cable news channel, a radio network or a website. Don't expect one to save another that's drowning. They could pull each other under.
 
Here is what should happen. The three networks ought to move their evening newscasts to the 10pm hour.
They will have more time to get up-to-the minute news, tape some interviews and be a bit more competitive with the other news organizations. Besides, the big three can barely scrape together 21 hours of prime time.
They can get rid of the bottom feeder shows and magazines and consentrate on a quality 7 days a week hour newscast.
 
It makes more sense than what they are doing now.

Alternatively, there's an item on the wires that NBC plans to go with cheap game, reality and magazine shows every night from 8 to 9 next season and do REAL programs from 9 - 11 pm. Instead of the crap they are planning, maybe the they could what burnedout suggested but at 8 pm.
 
The article linked by mostb1 showed Katie is third 25-54 as well as overall.

Drudge posted some numbers several days ago showing Katie is doing even worse in NYC, LA, and DC markets than nationally. Especially in LA, where KNBC had twice the audience of KCBS... and KABC four times KCBS.
 
More on business-as-usual-isn't-a-business-anymore

RE NBCU 2.0, from Broadcasting & Cable, quoting a closed-circuit intra-company briefing by NBC brass:

"the company says it will reduce its 'dependence on traditional content distribution methods and advertising models.' That includes delivering programming on various digital distribution platforms, including its own broadband websites and iTunes."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6382886

Or to quote Mr. Dylan, "Ya better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone..."
 
Katie seems nervous and out of place! She does NOT have the two vital requirements any anchor must have: presence and authority. She will eventually land a job on her own talkshow! Maybe there will be an opening on The View!
 
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