Posted on 09/12/2006 4:52:46 AM PDT by abb
For Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of the CBS Corporation, it was a week to savor.
His decision to make Katie Couric the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” looked like a wildly successful bet, so far at least. On the entertainment side, CBS was set to go into the fall season as the most watched network in prime time.
Success with another, equally fickle audience — Wall Street — endeared him to his boss, Sumner M. Redstone, the 83-year-old mogul who controls both CBS and Viacom. To top it all off, Mr. Moonves watched last week as Mr. Redstone publicly dismissed his archrival, Tom Freston, the Viacom chief executive.
Mr. Moonves is too savvy a political player to show even a hint of schadenfreude over the ouster of Mr. Freston. But in an interview late last week, he allowed himself to gloat a little about CBS’s current status.
“I am like: ‘O.K., bring it on and let the games begin,’ ’’ said the tanned, trim 56-year-old executive. “We are extremely pleased about Katie,” he said, though he was quick to add: “Don’t declare victory. Wait a couple of weeks.”
In a business where “we are changing our tires on a car going 80 miles an hour,” as Mr. Moonves described the treacherous world of broadcast TV, there is little certainty.
Ms. Couric’s initial ratings swamped NBC and ABC, but they could fall back to earth once the novelty of watching the first solo woman news anchor wears thin. If the aging demographics of the “CBS Evening News” do not improve — the median viewer’s age is just over 60 years old — selling spots to advertisers could grow more difficult.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
She has a voice that can be classified as "dippy". How can you take news seriously from someone who sounds like that? Of course I want serious news and would never expect to get it from CBS.
The New York Times tempers its enthusiasm over Katie, has already seen the ratings slide, acts like it hasn't happened ("wildly successful so far") even though an intern could have found the info, and pretends to be a trend reader by suggesting that the ratings may slide due to no fault by the great MSM.
A small but typical example of how truth doesn't matter at the NYT.
My own pride seems invested in watching Crazy Katie sink. Since her debut on Sep 5 Crazy Katie's ratings sank faster than an anchor on the Titanic falling 30% in 3 short days.. At that point Crazy Katie fans stepped in to start whining about the unfairness of using Nielsen ratings as a daily metric of Crazy Katie's progress in our network news horserace. So after proudly trumpeting Crazy Katie's ratings during the first few days MSM apparently changed gears after Crazy Katie's downward trend became apparent. Now an MSM embargo seems to exist on Crazy Katie's ratings which may indicate less than stellar results that SeeBS really wants to ignore. Either that or Crazy Katie suddenly became unnewsworthy after all these years.
kinda like the dixie chicks, huh? bwahahahahaha
I saw a PBS promo for a video concert.... I love when the MSM and the Libs get b#tch slapped by the people NOT supporting their "great" ideas or spokespeople.....
Like they say "Life Ain't Always Beautiful"....
After ONE week, it's already desperation time. Oh, the schadenfreude.
I'm waiting for them to start trotting out the excuses they used when Phil Donohue's ratings sank to oblivion..."Well, his target audience are still on their month-long vacations in Europe. When they get back, man, you just wait!"
In what language is 'bat' spelled V-E-S?
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