Posted on 03/08/2007 8:17:17 PM PST by Red Steel
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — CBS News today fired the executive producer of Katie Couric's struggling "CBS Evening News" broadcast and appointed former CNN and MSNBC president Rick Kaplan to the job.
Kaplan replaces Rome Hartman, said CBS News President Sean McManus. Hartman had held the position since before Couric began at CBS last September.
The newscast has been a distant third in the ratings behind ABC and NBC. During last month's pivotal ratings "sweeps" period, Couric's average of 7.6 million viewers was 6 percent down from what Bob Schieffer recorded in February 2006.
More troubling was the newscast's apparent confusion in direction, driving viewers away from the anchor given a multimillion-dollar commitment to jump from NBC's "Today" show.
McManus said he believes the broadcast is improving and increasing its focus on breaking news, but needed a strong executive like Kaplan to take it to the next level.
"I'm not sure that we are consistent enough so that every single night you know what you are going to get from the 'CBS Evening News,"' he said.
McManus said he decided less than a week ago that a change was needed and reached out to Kaplan to hear his ideas. Deciding he liked them, he brought Kaplan's name to Couric to get her assent.
He said he doesn't believe Couric's performance has anything to do with the ratings problems. "She is very good at this and will be even better at it," he said.
"Her ability and qualifications are not an issue with me at all," McManus said. "Creating the right show around her is what is important."
...Kaplan was also a good friend of President Clinton.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Well now. This will certainly make me watch Katie, the Perky One. //sarc off
"Her ability and qualifications are not an issue with me at all," McManus said. "Creating the right show around her is what is important."
The fact that he said this means that her ability and qualifications have become an issue.
The moron execs at CBS who thought Katie would make a great news caster should be fired.
Couric screws up and her underlings get the blame.
Socialist Democrat Kaplan is a perfect fit with Couric at CBS.
"When it's a story about Democrats, Katie, never use the word 'scandal'."
Those were his instructions to the staff at CNN during the Sinkmeister years.
CBS News has been in third place so long it's where they think they belong, only now it's a distant third.
They gave up on journalism a long time ago at CBS News, at least at the anchor spot.
I dunno. Seems like the same cr@p, night after night.
Consistently bad is not a good thing.
Katie "high-fives" just like John Edwards. He, he.
Yeah, that'll work. It's couric that sux but they throw the boss under the bus. Nobody wants to watch that leftist nonsense and changing out the bosses is not going to save that show. At least another lib looses their job.
You mean, that wasn't John Edwards?
So lemme get this right: CBS is hiring the guy that oversaw CNN's slide from dominance, getting crushed by Fox News. And not to be outdone, PMSNBC scoops up an unemployed Kaplan after he precipitated that demise of CNN, and then watched as PMSNBC slid down even further in the ratings than they already were to FOX News & everyone else in cable.
So McManus decides THIS is the guy that will bring skyrocketing ratings to their Nightly News.
The Liberal Ascendancy Principle in action: make sure everything you touch turns to rot and you're guaranteed to scale heights of positional power you could only dream about.
Stunning to me this party has control of anything, much less two houses of Congress.
Who cares?
To CBS: "shoot the messenger"...
Thanks to Dan Rather/CBS and his made-up hit job on Bush, I'll never watch CBS.
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