Posted on 03/08/2007 2:46:23 AM PST by abb
Kaplin's chief ability...is to sell far-left news. If he has to package it like the national enquirer...then he will do so. He really doesn't care for any standard neutral reporting scheme.
What does this mean? Katie likely had a personal hand in selecting him. She thinks that she can sharpen alot of stories that the other networks won't touch and sell to the public as liberal as she can. She is fine-tuning the audience and it will be a special type that watch. For the commerical sales dudes...this is really going to mess up their pitch and limit their potential.
Its a last-ditch dump I think...a six-month run...either they improve the numbers or she finds herself strictly with 60 Minutes crowd. The budget analysts at the network have to sweating and thinking about how much they paid her and how this will cost for years to come.
oh!
The huge manatee!
If CBS was concerned with nothing but the ratings they would Katie with Brit Hume.
You, sir, are brilliant! And correct!
update from LA Times. Quotes from the suits.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-cbs9mar09,0,1604081.story?coll=la-home-entertainment
Rick Kaplan takes over CBS News in network shake-up
Appointment signals network's dissatisfaction with third-place newscast.
By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2007
CBS executives announced today that Rick Kaplan, a veteran news executive who has done tours at nearly every television network, was assuming oversight of the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric," replacing Rome Hartman, who has produced the program since November 2005.
The management shake-up represents the first admission by CBS executives that they are dissatisfied with the third-place newscast's performance after months of maintaining that they were content with the broadcast.
CBS News President Sean McManus said today that he believes Kaplan can help bring consistency to the program, which underwent a period of experimentation after Couric assumed the anchor desk in September.
"The show is making very good progress," McManus said. "I just felt that we probably needed to make more progress faster and this was the best way to do it. It's not a reflection on the job Rome has done."
Hartman, an amiable producer who is well-liked in the newsroom, was viewed as lacking the forcefulness for running the closely-watched newscast, which is subject to input from many top executives, network sources said.
snip
they'll go through EVERY producer at cBS and still not be able to fix the PKC train wreck!!!
Thank you Dave.
updates
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-et-cbs9mar09,1,2281453.story?coll=la-headlines-business-enter
CBS' new script: Just the facts, Couric
By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer
March 9, 2007
NEW YORK — Sometimes a makeover can be too extreme.
Faced with moribund viewership of its flagship newscast, CBS News is trying to stanch audience attrition by recasting the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" in a more traditional mold and tapping a veteran news producer to run the program.
Thursday's hiring of Rick Kaplan, a onetime president of cable news channels CNN and MSNBC, amounts to the first public admission that network officials are dissatisfied with the performance of the newscast that had embraced new features aimed at wooing younger viewers. Six months after Couric's much-hyped arrival in the anchor chair, the broadcast has languished in third place, while ABC's Charles Gibson — known for his matter-of-fact, old-school style — has expanded his lead over CBS by an average of more than a million viewers a night.
The management shake-up coincides with a retreat from the kind of experimenting that characterized the CBS newscast last fall, when producers condensed news stories in order to air long newsmaker interviews and added segments such as "Free Speech," a platform for viewpoints from around the country. Many of those features have either been abandoned or are being used less frequently.
CBS executives now admit that they miscalculated the willingness of viewers to embrace a new approach to the evening news.
snip
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/business/media/09cbs.html?ref=business
March 9, 2007
CBS Producer Goes Around, Comes Around
By BILL CARTER
Rick Kaplan described his new position as the executive producer of the “CBS Evening News” yesterday as “coming home.” He worked on the broadcast in the 1970s when Walter Cronkite was the anchor. But then, he could have said the same thing at almost any television news organization this week.
Mr. Kaplan, who is 59, is among the most experienced, and most traveled, producers in TV news, having worked for ABC News, CNN and MSNBC as well as CBS over a 35-year career. He has won more than 30 Emmy Awards and has worked with some of the biggest names in the business, like Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel and Diane Sawyer.
But the situation Mr. Kaplan is entering, with the network evening news competition at a fever pitch, and with CBS still trying to mount a comeback behind its high-profile new anchor, Katie Couric, is also an opportunity for Mr. Kaplan to stage a comeback of his own.
He has bounced around the news business over the last decade, which includes a short stint running MSNBC and a somewhat turbulent tenure as president of CNN when the network was caught in a scandal over a report about the use of nerve gas in Vietnam.
snip
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117960787.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
MSNBC exec to join Couric's 'Evening'
By MICHAEL LEARMONTHGet ready for Katie Couric 2.0.
Tasked by Leslie Moonves to revive CBS' news division, News and Sports president Sean McManus brought in a huge personality to pair with his $15 million-per-year star.
This, after a splashy launch of the first version of the newscast in September failed to produce any lasting impact on the ratings.
Rick Kaplan, who got his start at CBS in the early '70s and was a producer on the "Evening News" when Walter Cronkite was anchor, believes the 6:30 p.m. timeslot has a lot of legs left, despite the geriatric advertising it attracts.
"There is an enormous audience of baby boomers coming to the evening news," he said. "It's not a dying timeslot; many evenings, the evening news is still the highest-rated program."
The notion that CBS can no longer win in news due to a weak local affiliate lineup had been the prevailing attitude for years at CBS until Moonves lifted the Eye's primetime into first place.
"It's not a point lost on Moonves," Kaplan said. "If he can do it in entertainment, why can't we do it in news?"
Kaplan, who was most recently president of MSNBC, but who also has led CNN and served as executive producer of ABC's "Nightline" and "World News With Peter Jennings," said the deal to bring him back to the Eye happened in the course of 48 hours.
snip
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/chi-0703090268mar09,0,4438069.column?coll=chi-business-hed
Chicago native aims to win at CBS newscast
Phil Rosenthal
Media
Advertisement
March 9, 2007
Innocently ask Rick Kaplan how he's doing, and he'll tell you he is still getting over last month's Chicago Bears Super Bowl loss.
Kaplan, a well-traveled TV news boss named Thursday as executive producer of "The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric," isn't much for losing.
His reputation--as an exec at MSNBC and CNN, as well as while running ABC's "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings," "Nightline" with Ted Koppel and "Primetime Live" with Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson, if not all the way back to his start as a copy boy at WBBM-Ch. 2--is that of a fiery competitor. He's not above going ballistic in response to a setback. Or even just a technical glitch.
Kaplan replaces soon-to-be-reassigned Rome Hartman as leaderof a third-place CBS newscast that, six months after Couric's much-heralded debut, has yet to gain traction in the nightly network news race. ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" is jockeying for first with "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams," after nearly 11 years of NBC leading the pack.
As always, the 6-foot-7 Kaplan, 59, once described by Koppel as someone who "will go through walls for his program," intends to play to win.
snip
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030802182.html
CBS News Hires Ex-CNN Chief To Give a Boost To Katie Couric
Lagging Ratings Led to Swift Ouster of Executive Producer
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007; C01
No one at CBS News was more intimately involved in helping Katie Couric shape her evening newscast and get it on the air each night than her executive producer, Rome Hartman.
But as the ratings languished and the "CBS Evening News" seemed to drift, the network decided this week to dump Hartman and replace him with hard-charging, high-profile producer Rick Kaplan -- the first public acknowledgment that the newscast and its $15-million-a-year anchor have not lived up to expectations. The deal was sealed Wednesday night when Kaplan had coffee and a two-hour talk at Couric's Manhattan apartment.
"I love Katie. She is a superb journalist," Kaplan, a former president of CNN and MSNBC and onetime executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight" and "Nightline," said yesterday. "For me, this whole deal is a no-brainer."
While "Katie could have stopped this from happening if she wanted to," Kaplan said, they have an "extraordinary comfort level" with each other. "I came here because I believe in my soul that Katie is the best" of the anchors, he added.
CBS News President Sean McManus, who made the decision after broaching the possibility with Kaplan over lunch last week, said that "listening to his ideas and his confidence in taking this show, and Katie, to the next level convinced me he was absolutely the best person to do this job. . . . Katie was not involved in the decision [to drop Hartman]. She was certainly consulted with respect to Rick."
snip
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.