Last year, CBS News announced with great fanfare the hiring of their new network news anchor, Katie Couric. The former Today show host was paid a whopping $15 million to make the leap from NBC to CBS. In hindsight, the move seems to be a historic blunder for CBS. Ratings for the evening news are at historic lows, as Couric’s show is being pummeled in the ratings by the other networks.
It is also being panned by critics for having too much of a focus on celebrities and not enough hard news coverage. The product is so bad that former news anchor Dan Rather is now taking shots at the CBS Evening News. Rather claims that the news program is “dumbing it down, tarting it up.” Rather claims that the program is trying to win younger, female viewers at the expense of news integrity. The attempt to draw a new audience has worked somewhat, as female viewers have increased 2% under Couric, but the cost has been male audience, which is down an astonishing 11%, causing the ratings to dive.
Of course Rather does not have the moral authority to criticize anyone, since he was forced from his highly paid position for promoting a story about President Bush and the National Guard that was inaccurate and based on forged documents.
CBS returned fire by claiming that Rather and the other Couric critics were engaged in “sexism.” Les Moonves, the President of CBS Corporation said that “I’m sort of surprised by the vitriol against her. The number of people who don’t want news from a woman was startling.”
Yet, Moonves is just plain wrong. The American people do not have a problem with women delivering hard news. People watch female news anchors all the time, on network morning shows, on local news and on many cable news programs. There are female news reporters and anchors all over the country that are respected and quite successful.
The problem is not that Americans are sexist, but that Couric has a style that viewers do not take seriously. People have watched CBS Evening News and found the content and delivery of the news quite unsatisfactory. Couric has been an abysmal failure not only in ratings, but also in her role as news anchor. Her perky informality was fine as a morning show host, but it does not meet the expectations people have of an evening news anchor.
Couric’s failure will not be the last one. With so many news options on television, with cable news programs, talk radio and the Internet, the heyday of the evening news programs is long over. In the last 25 years, the audience for these shows has shrunk by half. It will not turn around ever, especially with Couric at the helm.
The crisis at CBS News will continue as Couric’s future as news anchor is in doubt. However, there is also a crisis for all of the broadcast networks, for it will be difficult to sustain an audience for the evening news, casting doubt on the viability of the entire format.
Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 8:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and Noon till 2 p.m. weekdays on several Louisiana radio stations. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.
Hard to believe that CBS could "DUMB DOWN" after Dan Rather. CBS is getting just what they deserve. Curic is so liberal she's making Walter Cronkite look like a member of the Bush family.
Last year, CBS News announced with great fanfare the hiring of their new network news anchor, Katie Couric. The former Today show host was paid a whopping $15 million to make the leap from NBC to CBS. In hindsight, the move seems to be a historic blunder for CBS. Ratings for the evening news are at historic lows, as Couric’s show is being pummeled in the ratings by the other networks. 
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