Posted on 03/12/2007 9:40:43 AM PDT by LdSentinal
Last year, around the time that CBS agreed to pay an estimated $15 million a year to lure Katie Couric away from NBC, it spent several million dollars more in licensing fees to coax another nationally known television personality from the NBC station in New York to the one owned by CBS: Judge Judy.
By installing “Judge Judy” from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., in place of the lower-rated “People’s Court,” CBS — and WCBS, its New York station — were hoping to bolster the ratings of the local news that followed her syndicated program. That, in turn, was supposed to give a lift to Ms. Couric at 6:30 p.m. in her new role as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”
“Judge Judy,” featuring Judy Sheindlin, has kept up her end of the bargain, raising WCBS’s ratings between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. by more than 10 percent.
But ratings for the half hour of local news that precedes Ms. Couric’s program in New York remain virtually identical to last year at this time. And not only has Ms. Couric received none of the intended bounce, her viewership is actually down slightly in New York, compared to a year ago, when Bob Schieffer was occupying the same desk.
While most of the attention in the heated network news competition focuses on the anchors — Ms. Couric, Charles Gibson at ABC and Brian Williams at NBC — their performance is still greatly complicated by “lead-ins,” the programs that precede the national newscasts, and by how much the network newscasts squander or build on the audiences delivered to them by local stations.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
LOL. In the 1960s, the news WAS the "lead-in programming." These people never run out of excuses.
Nothing kills a good lead-in like a crappy product.
So New York has a weak lead-in program. What is CBS's excuse in all the other markets?
"My show's not unpopular -- that lead-in is weak."
Proof that people don't just follow the "lead-ins" into the next program slot. This ought to send them the message that people who want "news" will go to the station the they perceive gives them what they want and not just sit there for the pablum to be spooned into their mouths. Give them real "news" and their ratings will increase. Give them ideologically slanted opinion pieces and they pay the price, $15M/annum.........
Or they've gotten up to rummage for supper...
....And the best way the NYT could reverse it's sagging readership is to display the paper in the porno section of the magazine rack.
The amazing thing about this is neither the NYT nor CBS has a clue what the problem is. The NYT reports what has happened, ratings wise, but doesn't get why it happened. "Those dang viewers just don't appreciate Katy, despite Judy's fine lead in." CBS would have been smarter to hire Judge Judy to read the news. Judge Judy does her job. She isn't nearly as dishonest and just plain idiotic as The Perky One.
What a choice!
It's like the NFL with 31 Steve Georges and one Ryan Leaf.
Translation: Katie Couric is a failure at anchoring the CBS Evening News. She could have "Seinfeld" as a lead-in and still people would tune her out. Nobody cares about the Jurassic Park Media.
LOL!! And notice that we never see Judge Judy complaining about weak lead-ins hurting her ratings. She assumes that it's her job to create a program that people will want to watch. The perky one could learn a lot from Judge Judy.
Finding an excuse for Couric's lousy showing!
The obvious solution is to hire Judge Judy to anchor the network news.
They should introduce a segment of the CBS evening news-"Rosie (O Donnell) vs. Kobayashi".
How about a "Judge Judy" show where Katie and the CBS Suits have a case where they argue about who is responsible for the Death Valley ratings? I can't stand JJ, but watching her b-slap the lot of them would be pretty funny.
These folks will never get it.
All they have ever needed to do was report the REAL NEWS and report the TRUTH.
In today's world, though the truth can still be elusive at times, it is much easier to find all on our own, and as such, the MSM has become irrelevant.
For most of what we do watch, the lead in is "OFF"
After watching, the next program is almost always either "OFF", or on another channel.
Commercials are always "MUTE", since their subject is moot, anyway.
I never understood the concept of watching a crappy program, just because it came on before or after a decent one...and decent ones are getting rarer every season.
Isn't it obvious, they're not airing enough about Anna Nicole!
That, and the fact that they aren't discussing Global Warming enough.
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