Posted on 10/11/2006 7:14:53 AM PDT by MindBender26
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - 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.
"NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" won last week's derby with 8.5 million viewers -- its highest weekly average since late August, and its 114th victory in the past 118 weeks.
It was followed by ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson" (8 million) and "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" (7 million). There was some good news for CBS, however. The network was up 520,000 viewers from a year ago, when Bob Schieffer was anchoring the news. Schieffer's numbers were themselves on the upswing compared with the year before that.
NBC won all five nights led by the October 2 newscast that reported on the Amish school shootings, with 9.9 million viewers compared with ABC's 8.5 million and CBS' 8.1 million; it was the highest viewership for "NBC Nightly News" since March 21.
In the news demographic of adults 25-54, NBC and ABC tied with 2.2 ratings, though NBC's 2.71 million viewers was slightly higher than ABC's 2.68 million. CBS trailed with a 1.9 rating, equaling 2.34 million viewers in the demo, the lowest of Couric's tenure. Couric's first week averaged a 2.8 rating and she had three weeks of either 2.2s or 2.1s until last week.
I took the trouble of actually counting the "news" spots in the half hour I watched the second time. Two, just two "real" news stories. The rest was fluff and marshmallows, feel-good human interest magazine pieces. I could get more "news" from a supermarket tabloid than Katie & Co............
LOL!!!!........
Mr. Murrow would be surprised, if not aghast at all of this schlock programming.
CBS thought that "back of the book" type stories(features type content like really big dogs or 800-pound people) would work in the evening as it did on the "Today" Show.
Nope.
Honestly, I'd rather see that, than another hit piece on Bush, or a valiant 'reporter' standing out in a light rain to report on what they wish was a hurricane. 9 times out of 10, the mainstream news gets it wrong, or only reports 1/2 of the story, anyway. IMHO, it's better that they stick to fluff pieces, rather than completely misinform the population on things that really matter.
>>>What's the buyout? Minimum $7 million? And who will replace her? They're stuck with a loser for at least a year.>>
I call it karma
This makes me laugh.
She is just plain HORRIBLE on this program. Maybe it's because people are eating dinner and want to puke when they hear her... (Hillary, pay attention)
Another one who is sickening on her own (my opinion) is E D Hill. Oh, vomit.
Regards, Ivan
Pretty, perky, woman, alone does not a newscast make. It could, but what most people look for is informed, insightful, unbiased professionalism. That can take any number of forms. It could be pretty, yes, or handsome yes. It could be man or woman. It could even be perky. But it must be good journalism.
What's really going to be fun is to watch when things start getting "interesting" and the SeeBS newsroom. As the ratings tank, the "tension" on the set is bound to increase. This, of course, will lead to even lower ratings, and so it goes.
At some point things will reach a breaking point when either someone has a "Rather" moment and storms off the stage, or people refuse to work with other people, or all sorts of dirt is dished out to reporters anonymously or who knows?
In other words the fun is just getting started!
She's such an intolerable twit. I hope she's terminated in total disgrace. I enjoy seeing liberals fall on their face in front of millions of people. ;o)
If North Korea nukes Seattle, I would bet Carrot Top would watch the breaking coverage with Katie. So, CBS would get some eyeballs . . . |
And she'll walk away with how many millions?
Not a bad gig.
I admit, I watched her the night she had Rush on.
Thankfully his slot was not far into the program.
Yes - Special Report is the best thing on evening TV. Great news coverage, excellent analysis that lasts for more than 10 seconds, and a joke at the end. A perfect show.
No, it's not. Despite the liberal slanting, BBC World News (which we get here on PBS stations around 2300-2400) is a much better program.
I think what undermines it even worse is her "Reporter's Notebook" segments that air on the local CBS affiliates' local news immediately preceeding her own "newscast." Over here, the broadcast networks have local news (from the local station) at 5pm, followed by national news (from network HQ) at 5:30, then additional programming or another local news broadcast at 6. Sometime during the first local newscast, there's a short (~30 sec - 1 min) preview of what's going to be on the national newscast, delivered by the anchor of said broadcast. Well, Perky Katie has replaced that snippet with a segment called her "Reporter's Notebook" where she gushes how she feels about some news figure or event, which may have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual news that she's going to present. It's pretty awful and does nothing to hook people to view her program.
Someone on another thread was speculating that CBS would be notching up her sex appeal shortly to try to increase ratings. I caught about a minute of her show last night while channel surfing, and it looks like it's begun. No coat, translucent blouse unbuttoned to top of cleavage, bra semi-visible under blouse. Apparently still not enough to stop her ratings plunge.
Except people who do good on radio usually tank on TV for some odd reason from what I can tell
And the suits at SEE-BS are surprised by this? The empty suits hired an empty dress, and this is the result!
You can say that again and the show is not even entertaining.
Very true. Contrived Gravitas.
And that's exactly why they have the capability to do so much damage. People assume that these idiots know what they're talking about, but the reality is that Ms. Couric understands little more than her own opinions, and how to read a teleprompter. Same with most of the other talking heads.
There are a few good ones out there. John Stossel is a bit of a sensationalist, but he is a good reporter.
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