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ANTICIPOINTMENT: CBS 'EVENING NEWS' WITH COURIC KNOCKED TO 3RD IN MONDAY ROMP; NBC 'NIGHTLY' TAKES BACK TOP SPOT WITH 5.8 RATING/11 SHARE, IN OVERNIGHT METERED MARTS, AFTER COURIC DEBUT WEEK DRAMA... ABC 'WORLD' FINISHED SECOND MONDAY WITH 5.7/11 SHARE TO CBS COURIC 5.4/10... DEVELOPING..

Media buyers see new CBS anchor sinking By Diego Vasquez Sep 12, 2006 Katie Couric's debut as network television's first lone woman anchor is important for a lot of reasons beyond Couric herself, and not the least is what success or failure will mean for network news. A rise to No. 1 for the longtime No. 3 "CBS Evening News" broadcast would surely bring about major changes at NBC and ABC. But a week after Couric's debut, that's probably not going to happen. On her first night, Couric shot up to No. 1 in the ratings, and while she finished...

For Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of the CBS Corporation, it was a week to savor. His decision to make Katie Couric the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” looked like a wildly successful bet, so far at least. On the entertainment side, CBS was set to go into the fall season as the most watched network in prime time. Success with another, equally fickle audience — Wall Street — endeared him to his boss, Sumner M. Redstone, the 83-year-old mogul who controls both CBS and Viacom. To top it all off, Mr. Moonves watched last week as Mr. Redstone...

Wall Street Journal Finds Kyoto-Inspired Carbon Trading Hikes Electric Bills for German Consumers Report contrasts with CBS's earlier cheerleading for a similar plan in California. The Kyoto Protocol’s costs are coming as a shock to many German businesses and consumers. They’re finding higher utility costs resulting from their government’s implementation of the climate change treaty, The Wall Street Journal reported on September 11. Reporter Jeffrey Ball noted that in Germany, Kyoto-inspired rules “have upset the business status quo” as they have ended up “creating winners and losers. The winners include utilities that can charge higher rates and profit from trading...

Katie Couric CBS 'EVENING NEWS' premiered with a 9.1 household, metered market rating and fell continuously (each day) thereafter: 9.1--7.0--6.5--4.9. Friday's household rating earned Katie third place... Developing

Rooney Suggests Fault for Terrorism Lies with American Behavior In his commentary at the end on Sunday's 60 Minutes, the day before the five year mark since 9/11, Andy Rooney noted that “we're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons,” a policy with which he only grudgingly agreed as he lamented, “we have to do it I guess.” Then, however, he suggested the fault for terrorism lies with American behavior, not the murderous ideology of terrorists who want to destroy Western democratic culture: “But might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way...

by Mark Finkelstein September 11, 2006 - 09:00 Matt Lauer gave it the old college try, doing his best to lure Hillary Clinton into some Bush-bashing on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. But demonstrating savvy political instincts, or at least those of her advisers, Clinton held fire, not deigning to swing at the anti-Bush softballs Lauer served up on this morning's 'Today.' Lauer: "Are we safer today five years after the attacks of 9-11?" Hillary: "I think it is fair to say we are safer but not safe enough. We have a lot of work to do." Lauer lobbed a...

Susan Lyne knew it was a bad idea. That's why the ABC Entertainment president passed on what morphed into The Reagans, CBS's now infamous—and now scrubbed—miniseries. "Either you were going to get something very soft, and you weren't going to get an audience for it," she said. "Or you did something where you played up whatever elements you could and ended up having a bad reaction." Lyne was surprised that CBS would produce a program critical of a popular former president afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. "A lot of people look at him as a god," she said during a meeting...

The Media vs. The War on TerrorHow ABC, CBS, and NBC Attack AmericaÂ’s Terror-Fighting Tactics as Dangerous, Abusive and IllegalBy Rich Noyes, MRC Research Director September 11, 2006Full Report | PDF Version Executive Summary In the five years since al-Qaeda terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, both international critics and domestic groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have suggested that the American governmentÂ’s tactics in the War on Terror are as frightening as terrorism itself. These mostly liberal critics portray the Bush administration as trampling on the civil rights of ordinary Americans, abusing the human...

"I've said to people we don't torture. And we don't." That's what President Bush told Katie Couric yesterday. That was a very odd thing to say on the very day his Pentagon repudiated interrogation "techniques" it had been using and embraced international standards for humane treatment of all detainees in military custody. These standards, by the way, will still not apply to detainees in CIA custody who can still be subjected to "techniques" — translation: torture. The president also told Ms. Couric that one of the things he felt badly about from his tenure was Abu Ghraib. Now Abu Ghraib...

At the Kettle Diner in Jacksonville, N.C., it's faith, family and the Corps. Jacksonville is home to Camp Lejuene, the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast...Even some lifelong conservatives aren't hearing the president's message anymore. "I've turned him off," said retired Marine Col. Jim Van Riper. "I've tuned him out." Van Riper is a Christian, card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association who voted for President Bush twice. But as more Marines have died, his confidence in the Bush administration has died as well.

Al-Jazeera aired Thursday previously unshown footage of the preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks in which al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is seen meeting with some of the planners and hijackers in a mountain camp in Afghanistan.

n her second outing as anchor of The CBS Evening News on Sept. 6, Katie Couric once again led the network news race, although the audience dipped from her Sept. 5 debut. The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric notched a strong 10.13 million viewers Sept. 6, according to overnight ratings from Nielsen Media Research, up from 7.34 million on the same night a year ago. Couric's day two performance dipped from an impressive 13.59 million viewers on Sept. 5, where heavy sampling drove CBS to its best Evening News rating since 1998. On Wednesday night, ABC World News With...

Rush Limbaugh is scheduled to appear on tonight's edition of "The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric," delivering a 90-second commentary. Apparently this was an upsetting piece of news to millions. No, not liberals who consider Limbaugh to be the Anti-Clinton. It was the far-right crowd that was upset. According to Limbaugh himself, many of his die-hard conservative fans criticized him when they first heard via the Drudge Report that Limbaugh was going to appear during Couric's ridiculously overhyped first week. (I half-expected Couric to levitate midway through her first broadcast and then to change the weather on command, a...

This is an FYI for those of you who cannot tune into the CBS Evening News tonight to check out the 1 minute and 30 second commentary by Rush Limbaugh. The video will be posted at Michelle Malkin's new Hot Air website shortly after the segment airs at around 6:50pm EDT. I received an email back from Ian Schwartz of Hot Air (Ian, formerly of the video blogs, 'The Political Teen' and 'Expose The Left') confirming that they will be posting it right away. The Hot Air website - http://www.hotair.com/

One of the questions everyone asks a new anchor is, "What's your sign off going to be?" Walter Cronkite had the most famous nightly farewell, "And that's the way it is." Edward R. Murrow used, "Good night and good luck." Well, it's a new era here at The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and Katie thinks maybe you folks on the other side of the screen might have some good ideas for what her own sign-off should be. If nothing else, it will be a lot of fun reading your ideas and, who knows, maybe one will actually stick.

Couric's CBS Debut: From Taliban to Suri Sep 05 7:40 PM US/Eastern By DAVID BAUDER AP Television Writer NEW YORK Katie Couric began her first night as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" on Tuesday by standing in front of a video board displaying a fast- moving rundown of stories ranging from the Taliban to Suri Cruise. "Hi, everyone," she said. "I'm very happy to be with you tonight." She ended the historic evening by asking viewers for help in crafting a distinctive signoff. "But for now, all I have to say is, I'm Katie Couric, thank you so much...

Ask the FCC to enforce broadcast decency laws should CBS air profane language during prime-time viewing hours this Sunday evening Earlier I wrote you about the plans by CBS to air "9/11" containing hardcore profanity during primetime viewing (Supreme Court's 'safe-harbour') hours when children are most likely to be watching television. The program is schedule to air this Sunday evening. Because of your actions, CBS announced they would not seek sponsors for the program. But they also said, sponsors or no sponsors, that they will not mute the profanity. A growing number of CBS affiliates have publicly stated that they...

KATIE COURIC last night underwent her second on-air colonoscopy. Watching the procedure was not a horribly painful event. Nor was it an experience I would volunteer to repeat any time soon. For her very first night as CBS News diva, Katie spent a half-hour looking as if she desperately had to go potty. Her back was so stiff as she looked into the camera, pop-eyed and self-conscious, I feared it would snap. Her face was Botoxed beyond normal human endurance, proving that even pampered, overpaid news babes possess the courage to suffer for their art. And for the first time...

Commentary: CBS should shelve the cute stuff and stick to ... the news NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - "I am very happy to be with you tonight." With those un-momentous words Tuesday night, Katie Couric, 49, was off and running as the new anchor of "The CBS Evening News." At last the hype was over and the former star of NBC's "Today" show would have an opportunity to prove herself as a serious evening-newscaster. She dropped the ball. At its worst, the show reinforced all of the worries of grizzled veteran journalists. This wasn't all Couric's fault. She was, as billed,...