Katie Couric has caught the attention of many people for many years now as the host of the Today Show but it seems as soon as she switched to the evening news, she lost her viewers and gained attention in the wrong way. Instead of being called a great anchor, the majority are calling her a train wreck. The reason why CBS brought Couric down to the evening news was to change the demographics a bit from more male viewers and add more female viewers. Supposedly, there has been a lot of speculation that she will end her time at CBS after the presidential election before her contract is up in 2011. That is huge! She must be getting a lot of crap from viewers and other employees at CBS for her to consider this “divorce.” Or maybe it is her ratings that are making her want out:
The bulk of the viewers of evening newscasts apparently grew up watching Cronkite, so they rejected the 51-year-old whippersnapper Couric. She debuted with impressive ratings (13 million viewers), but CBS soon fell to third place and hit as low as 5.5 million last year. Nearly 7 million watch her now. "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" leads the pack with an average of 9 million viewers per night. ABC's newscast with Charles Gibson falls in the middle at more than 8 million.
If there are so many Cronkite lovers and then CBS throws in Katie Couric to pretty mush take his spot, then of course the viewers are going to be disappointed. Cronkite is a legend, and just because I am all about supporting female news anchors doesn’t mean I don’t like Katie Couric. However, there is no way that Couric could take on a task like the evening news like Cronkite did. She has lost that spark that everyone used to love. Also, at this day and age with the Internet attempting to take over, the evening news has become less viewed by the population. In order to keep viewers, CBS needs a better evening news anchor to keep the ratings up. Obviously, Couric is not fitting that position. Maybe network news was trying to evolve too fast. Barbara Walters had to Co-host the ABC evening news and she got a mouthful all the time from her desk mate. And way back when Connie Chung teamed up with the legend Dan Rather, thing were not any easier then either.
With all this said, I do feel some sympathy for Couric. Can’t we all just blame the newer technology that is taking over our media trends?
3 comments:
I have to say that I don't watch Katie Couric. I have nothing against Couric, but as a college student, I barely have time to check CNN.com for the latest headlines. I used to have time to watch the evening news but I always just tune in to our local Houston channels. I am pretty sure that the college students are using the internet as a source of news information as well. And yes, even though I don't watch her, I have heard all the horrible things the critics have to say! I don't know what everyone has against her.
Kelsey
I believe that one of the reasons why CBS brought in Couric was to attract younger viewers, and she surely is not doing that. It's not that young viewers have anything against her it's just that we don't care. The fact is that young viewers are getting their news from other outlets like the internet and the daily show.
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