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.
If there is a major breaking story, another terrorist attack, etc, ratings will tank much worse very quickly. Who, in an emergency, is going to watch Katie?
She was referred to as Perky Katie Rather at a recent NYC party. She is toast after Feb or May ratings books.
Nobody wants to end their day with a perky midget.
What would the ratings be if Brit Hume was the anchor?
Hmmm....
One of the networks is going to it out.
Regards, Ivan
figure it out
IT'S THE NEWS BIAS, STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What's the buyout? Minimum $7 million? And who will replace her? They're stuck with a loser for at least a year.
Before this all began I told Mrs. BE that we would get to see Katie locked into a losing situation, and unable to extract herself.
It's begun, I'm going to enjoy this.
CBS got what they (over)paid for.
She should have been bright enough to say no.
There is no appeal. That's why they're failing..........
It's also brain dead mush...note the "Assignment: America" features. I believe the reporter covering that feature had a choice of visiting a primary school for children of circus clowns, visiting the "yellow smiley face" museum or going to a minor scientific awards show.
Yes, this is what we want to hear about while North Korea is blowing up things.
Regards, Ivan
If you gift wrap a turd, it's still a turd.......
Fox and Friends reported that the perky one gets paid about $1.95 per veiwer.
I remember seeing an article stating that more women than men watch the evening news in the U.S. That plus the novelty of being the first major network to go with a solo female anchor seemed to be a winning ticket for the CBS management.
CBS was hoping that a pretty, perky woman, alone, on the news set, would be sufficient to jump the broadcast into second place, at least second place.
In other words, CBS was going for appearance over substance.
In hard news programming, that seldom works. People can see right through it.
You've got that right, Ivan, and Ms. Couric is not a serious newsperson. That is becoming increasingly obvious to everone except her far left followers.
How long before the blue hairs demand the return of Schieffer?
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