Ratings Fail to Surge in KT Couric's Tour of Duty
CBS Evening News registered 5.5 million viewers last week, tying a record low, despite Katie Couric being dispatched to Baghdad, reports the Associated Press.
Sean McManus, CBS News President, naturally, went into a quick spin control, saying CBS wasn't expecting high ratings; and ``The trip's journalism outweighed commercial considerations''
With low ratings becoming the norm on the CBS Evening News; it's hard for Couric to stay perky these days.
Which makes you wonder if she’ll soon desert the anchor chair and devote all her attention to 60 Minutes or a similar magazine venue.
I'm sure the former Today show host has refused to quit her evening chores if for no other reason than not to let down those who were counting on her to pave the way for the next generation of female anchors.
If Couric does step down, she shouldn't consider it a failure, CBS Evening News simply didn’t play to her strength, that of being highly skilled journalist, who knows how to get the best of her subjects in one on one interviews during highly charged emotional circumstances , like the way she calmed viewers with updates on the Southern California earthquake in 1994, reporting from Littleton Colo., after the Columbine shooting; and reporting live on Sept 11 as viewers were fed the first footage of the Twin Towers crumble into a cloud of dust.
But despite all the great reporting and magnificent journalism on the Today Show, Couric was, like it or not, most remembered for joking with Matt and Al, filling in for Jay Leno, and making cameos on Murphy Brown and Cheers.
After 15 years of being a cut up; and then to say now I want to be considered a serious journalist, it's not hard to understand why her ratings never lived up to expectations.
-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net
Sean McManus, CBS News President, naturally, went into a quick spin control, saying CBS wasn't expecting high ratings; and ``The trip's journalism outweighed commercial considerations''
With low ratings becoming the norm on the CBS Evening News; it's hard for Couric to stay perky these days.
Which makes you wonder if she’ll soon desert the anchor chair and devote all her attention to 60 Minutes or a similar magazine venue.
I'm sure the former Today show host has refused to quit her evening chores if for no other reason than not to let down those who were counting on her to pave the way for the next generation of female anchors.
If Couric does step down, she shouldn't consider it a failure, CBS Evening News simply didn’t play to her strength, that of being highly skilled journalist, who knows how to get the best of her subjects in one on one interviews during highly charged emotional circumstances , like the way she calmed viewers with updates on the Southern California earthquake in 1994, reporting from Littleton Colo., after the Columbine shooting; and reporting live on Sept 11 as viewers were fed the first footage of the Twin Towers crumble into a cloud of dust.
But despite all the great reporting and magnificent journalism on the Today Show, Couric was, like it or not, most remembered for joking with Matt and Al, filling in for Jay Leno, and making cameos on Murphy Brown and Cheers.
After 15 years of being a cut up; and then to say now I want to be considered a serious journalist, it's not hard to understand why her ratings never lived up to expectations.
-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net
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