The Couric Conspiracy: As Katie Couric's newscast sinks back into third place, here's a thought: Maybe CBS isn't disappointed. Maybe the hiring of Couric had nothing to do with boosting the ratings for the CBS Evening News, attracting new demographics, blah, blah, blah. Maybe Couric was hired by CBS solely to screw NBC's highly-profitable Today Show! After all, CBS's Les Moonves could somehow get his network back into the lucrative morning-show game--by depriving the dominant competitor of its star--wouldn't that mean a lot more to CBS' bottom line than whether it gets an extra point or two in the shrinking evening news market? ... Wait and see how the Couric-less Today does before you decide whether she was worth $15 million to CBS. ... 1:17 P.M.Here's the link -- scroll down to the Tuesday Sept. 12th entries. So maybe she was set up to fail -- which would amuse me if true.
Ding!!
Hey, even if they didn't go so far as to set Katie up to fail, they still could have had as a primary motivation screwing The Today Show.
They might have even known NOTHING can actually save the evening news broadcast, so give it the old college try and let it die a natural death.
In the meantime, they have gotten SOMETHING for their big bucks, namely lots of buzz and name recognition for the CBS brand.
And they may actually have a shot at the morning show competition now, which, unlike the evening news broadcast, will continue to be a profitable fixture in television for a while.