Katie Couric movin' on

[Faithless]

I think that Ms. Couric can only bring good things to the CBS Evening News, but yet she has her detractors.

For women, Couric's new job is both good and bad news (http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060417/COLUMNIST10/604170335/1066/BUSINESS01)

By DAVID SCHEPP | THE JOURNAL NEWS | Original publication: April 17, 2006)

The news earlier this month that "Today" co-host Katie Couric would leave her comfortable post at NBC to anchor the "CBS Evening News" was eventful for no other reason than it shouldn't have been news at all.

Couric, an accomplished journalist even before she started her work at "Today," has logged 15 years worth of interviews with politicians, authors, do-gooders, ne'er-do-wells, entertainers and other newsmakers.

But this is America, after all. And in a country where the upper echelons of virtually every business or organization are still dominated by men, Couric's decision to become the first woman to solo anchor a network news program is still newsworthy.

"One of the things that makes something news is that it's unusual," says Carolyn M. Byerly, associate professor in the journalism department at Howard University in Washington.

"So the first woman to do something, the first African-American person to do something, the first gay or lesbian person to do something, gets noticed," Byerly says.

She does take exception to reports that have focused too much on Couric's femininity.

"Should we stereotype a woman because she happens to have a good personality?" asks Byerly, co-author of "Women and Media: A Critical Introduction," published in January by Blackwell Publishing Professional.

"The deeper question is why it didn't happen 20 years ago," Byerly says. There are other unanswered questions, such as why broadcast news is still a white-male dominated industry in a nation that is becoming increasingly diverse, she says.

Many point to the fact that women still have a long road ahead of them before they achieve parity with men in the workplace.

That won't happen as long as women are taken for granted, says Michele Phillips, director of Orangeburg-based Key Seminars, a workplace-consulting firm.

Women often aren't recognized for their intellect or for the value they bring to the workplace or business, she says.

What Couric brings to the table is that she's herself, Phillips says. "When you're genuinely confident in who you are, that's attractive."

That's big, she says.

"I don't want to pretend I'm a man. I want to be a woman. And I want to be proud of being a woman. And I want to show that I have emotions and feelings."

When Patricia Simone saw the media coverage of Couric's announcement she didn't understand all the hoopla.

"It's wonderful, obviously, that there are going to be some strides made by her getting into the position and having this opportunity," says Simone, a former sales-and marketing executive and founder of WomenCentric LLC in Pomona.

Still, Simone says, the news that a woman is becoming the first solo anchor of a nightly newscast is a bit late in coming.

"It's more than about time," she says. That, in part, is because women have made great strides as entrepreneurs.

"We're starting businesses at twice the rate of men, we're staying in business longer (and) we're becoming much more successful," Simone says.

Wendy Kaufman's reaction to Couric's announcement was, "You're kidding — this is the year 2006, and it's the first time a woman's going to be an anchor?"

Kaufman, president of Balancing Life's Issues Inc. in Ossining, says the problem she saw with the coverage of Couric's announcement is that it didn't focus on her talents or qualifications and that it wasn't greeted with, "Wow, she's the perfect person for the job."

The emphasis, rather, was on gender. That doesn't happen with men, she says.

"For women, gender is first and foremost on a resume. We haven't moved past that," Kaufman says.

"Until we have more political clout," she says, "it's not going to change in the corporate world."

[haplesshobo]

That's really unfair. As soon as a guy questions something a woman does, all a woman has to do is label the guy sexist and that stops any debate.

To me, the questionmarks, with Katie Couric isn't that she's a woman, but that she lacks the traditional gravitas of the traditional TV anchor. If Ahmad Rashad was going to be an anchor, I'd have reservations about that as well. When I think of Katie Couric, I think of that giggling and smiling host on Today show. Yes, she's done interviews on Today Show, but always in the context of a morning show, where the interviews are mainly silly and safe. Mostly, she's known for interviewing celebrities and her TV specials are about things like Harry Potter.

She doesn't have the hard journalism background of her peers. They all traveled the world, covering hot spots. Brian Willaims, when he was the heir apparent for NBC, was groomed where he was sent overseas to work at those international bureas. There are other women who have more credibility with hard journalism like Lara Logan.

Frankly, I don't understand CBS paying all that money to snag Katie Couric to host the nightly news. She's popular with viewers because she's all cute and giggly, but she can't do that as a serious anchor. It just seems like she's not going to be utilizing her biggest strengths.

I would have been a coup to steal her to build a news morning show around her on CBS, but I have my doubts if having her anchor the nightly news will work or if she will be able to justify her salary for doing that.

[Faithless]

There's that whole bogus gravitas thing. We're just too conditioned to our anchors being supposedly stately dudes.

Katie will do fine. She's reading the news like the other dudes, anyways.

I look forward to her on 60 Minutes, too, which is getting crotchety.

[lethal]

To me, the questionmarks, with Katie Couric isn't that she's a woman, but that she lacks the traditional gravitas of the traditional TV anchor. If Ahmad Rashad was going to be an anchor, I'd have reservations about that as well. When I think of Katie Couric, I think of that giggling and smiling host on Today show. Yes, she's done interviews on Today Show, but always in the context of a morning show, where the interviews are mainly silly and safe. Mostly, she's known for interviewing celebrities and her TV specials are about things like Harry Potter.

She doesn't have the hard journalism background of her peers. They all traveled the world, covering hot spots. Brian Willaims, when he was the heir apparent for NBC, was groomed where he was sent overseas to work at those international bureas. There are other women who have more credibility with hard journalism like Lara Logan.

Frankly, I don't understand CBS paying all that money to snag Katie Couric to host the nightly news. She's popular with viewers because she's all cute and giggly, but she can't do that as a serious anchor. It just seems like she's not going to be utilizing her biggest strengths.

I would have been a coup to steal her to build a news morning show around her on CBS, but I have my doubts if having her anchor the nightly news will work or if she will be able to justify her salary for doing that.

CBS is in 3rd place in the nughtly news ratings, they needed something different to compete anyway. Couric is a proven ratings commodity in the morning business. This hiring could help improve their fortunes in the evening news. Maybe it'll help them with the female demographic (which advertisers pay for). Also, it hurts their competition in the morning. Maybe CBS can improve their morning ratings too.

For both of those reasons, she was well worth the money.

[haplesshobo]

CBS is in 3rd place in the nughtly news ratings, they needed something different to compete anyway. Couric is a proven ratings commodity in the morning business. This hiring could help improve their fortunes in the evening news. Maybe it'll help them with the female demographic (which advertisers pay for). Also, it hurts their competition in the morning. Maybe CBS can improve their morning ratings too.

For both of those reasons, she was well worth the money.

Even in the best possible scenario where Couric can actually improve the ratings for CBS evening news(which has actually already improved under the temp anchor, Bob Schieffer), I still don't necesairly agree that paying her $15 million a year is a good idea. The news division does not generate the profits that other divisions would, and I don't know if even signifigantly improved ratings could cover that salary. In comparison, Brian Williams on NBC gets 4M a year, while Anderson Cooper gets 2M. And, of course, that's assuming that Couric is able to bring in new viewers to the evening news.

CBS is basically paying Couric morning talkshow money since morning talkshow and latenight are what generates the most profit for those channels. I wouldn't disagree about paying her that much if she was doing morning talkshow, since a improvement in those ratings would lead to a major change for the bottom line.

[lethal]

Schieffer's overall ratings are up, but I think with the general distrust of Dan Rather after his Bush Air National Guard scandal, people stopped watching Rather out of protest. They're back to CBS now that he's gone, not necessarily because Schieffer's there. I think Couric can keep many of those viewers and also add more female ones.

Also remember that while Schieffer's ratings were up over Rather's, the demographics skewed older. CBS, in general, is the top rated network, but the ratings skew older. Advertisers want programs that cater to some younger audiences with more disposable income rather than fixed costs. CBS has been pursuing a shift in their demographic for a younger audience. This plays into that strategy.

If two shows have equal overall ratings, but one has more younger viewers and the other has more older viewers, advertisers will pay more for commercials that are seen by younger viewers.

Couric has the potential to bring in younger viewers as well as bring in female viewers. Plus, Scheiffer's going to stick around and do commentary, which he was very good at in his present role. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/17/110722.shtml

I agree, $15 mil is probably too high, given that Jennings, Brokaw and Rather made about 8 mil a piece and they had been in their jobs for 20+ years. However, it is the combination of Couric going to the CBS Evening News and taking her away from NBC's Today morning show that makes it worthwhile. Remember, it boosts CBS evening new ratings and also probably hurts NBC's morning ratings, which CBS might be able to take advantage of.

[thaite]

She'sPerky

AndIHatePerky

[haplesshobo]

I agree that younger demographics will bring in more advertising revenue, although I always thought that its been over emphasized. If anything, with the boomer generation getting older and all its disposable income, I would think advertisers would also want to go after that segment of the population as well but that's a different conversation for a different thread.

I get what you're saying about hurting NBC's morning ratings, but a lot of that seems predicated on CBS' morning show being able to snag viewers away, assuming you'll see viewers defect from the Today Show when Katie Couric leaves. The Today Show has already signed Meredith V. from the View to replace Katie Couric, and I think she'll do a good job especially with her experience doing a morning talkshow like the View.

I understand I'm not the target audience, but to me, CBS' morning show hosts just don't have the special something that Katie Couric did. I remember watching Julie Chen as host of Big Brother a number of years ago, and I was not very impressed. If part of the plan was to weaken the Today Show, and bring more viewers to CBS morning show, I would have wanted a stronger morning show in place. I think what will happen is that ABC is going to benefit more from a weakened Today Show than anything else.

I think this would be a great deal for CBS if Katie Couric was willing to be the morning person on the Early Show if it doesn't work out with the Evening News. So that after a year or two, if everybody agrees that it was a mistake, then she takes over the Early Show.

[greenbraces01]

Who gives a rats ass if she's movin' on. I don't give a crap if she makes $35 million a year, what's that gotta do with me?

[lethal]

Who gives a rats ass if she's movin' on. I don't give a crap if she makes $35 million a year, what's that gotta do with me?

Then don't read the thread. Don't post in it. You don't care? Ignore it. Don't come in and bitch and moan.

[haplesshobo]

CBS evening news just finished second in ratings for the first time in nearly five years, beating ABC evening news. While the other two networks have been losing viewers, CBS has actually been gaining viewers.

I've always found it strange that CBS evening news ratings would always lag behind the other networks, given the strength of its 60 minutes news program.

Its interesting as it puts more pressure on ABC evening news, and who to use to replace Elizabeth Vargas when she goes on maternity leave. Bob Woodruff is still recovering from the injuries he suffered in Iraq. And, there's talk about Charlie Gibson leaving the morning program to do the evening news. But, if he does that, that would weaken the morning program and Sawyer might not be willing to stay. But, if you send Sawyer to do the evening news, that would also weaken the morning program.

And, The View has also announced that Rosie O'Donnel is replacing Meredith V. While O'Donnel had a very popular talk show years ago, I think O'Donnel also alienated her audience and its a question how many viewers she'll bring with her to the View. There's also talks of Starr Jones leaving the View.

[haplesshobo]

The merry go around finally stopped.

Charlie Gibson ended up moving up to the news anchor for ABC.

Rosie O'Donnel ended up on the View, but it seems like she fills the same role that Joy Behar does.

And, Katie Couric made her debut as anchor. I'm sure there will be a spike in ratings as curious viewers wanted to check her out, but I have doubts as to how permanent it will be.

As for the pretty, I'd still rather have Lara Logan fill that role as anchor so I could watch her every day.
And, Katie finally made her debut.

[haplesshobo]

Here's the numbers for Evening News:

After an initial impressive debut where curious viewers turned in to see KC, she's quickly lost those viewers and her show has finished in third place for the fifth consecutive week. The show is averaging 7.29 million viewers, the same as the corresponding week a year ago, when Bob Schieffer was anchoring.

NBC finished in first with 8.65 million viewers and Charlie Gibson's ABC show is in second with 8.38 million viewers.

[Faithless]

^ With all that hatin' on Couric, yet, secretly, you'd love to boff her little bootie off. Come on, admit it.

[haplesshobo]

The LATimes is reporting that there's some major changes at CBS to try to staunch the loss of viewers, which has actually declined compared to last year with Bob Schieffer. They're going to return to a more traditonal format, where the changes introduced had alieanted and driven away its older viewers.

And, in other network news, FOX Friends basically fired Kiran Chetney after contentious contract negotiations where she wanted an increase from her yearly salary at 300K. That was a major mistake. She was drop dead gorgeous, intelligent, and likeable. An hour later, CNN picked her up but it seems they're wasting her talent by making her just a news reader wearing a conservative suit. I'm surprised CBS morning show didn't try to hire Kiran since she's a younger, prettier Katie Couric.

[yellowgal]

The Katie Couric saga today — new producer brought in suddenly, old producer bounced out — is notable for one missing player: Les Moonves.

Where is the head of CBS when you need him? Since he put Sean McManus in place as head of CBS News, sources say, Moonves is giving McManus just enough rope to hang himself.

McManus, critics say, hasn’t done enough to support Couric with in-house staff or to make the necessary changes at the "CBS Evening News."

“The show has decades’ old lethargy,” says a source, “They’re well known for being way behind ABC and NBC in hiring fresh talent and quality of staff for on-air talent.”

Moonves, one of the great game players in the media wars, is remaining mum for a reason, insiders speculate.

“He’s putting the pressure on McManus to find the right people now to showcase Katie. Going outside CBS to bring in fresh blood is a good idea. Rick Kaplan might shake the news division out of its decades-malaise.”

I think they’re right: outgoing producer Rome Hartman, who’s been with CBS for years and knows his business, simply would not listen to criticism of Couric’s show.

Ten minutes into any broadcast, Couric was off doing soft features while Brian Williams and Charles Gibson were doing hard hitting news.

Did Couric approve Kaplan’s hiring? Says one source, “If she didn’t want him there, he wouldn’t be there.”
(foxnews fox411 source from 3/9)

-----
tkx for the info. on kiran chetney i'd read something about that but i didn't watch the show

[power puff girl]

and, now, dan rather, that bitter, old man, has come out with some sexist comments why katie couric's numbers have been disappointing. no wonder couric has struggled so much in the face of all this sexism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070612/ap_on_en_tv/cbs_couric

[Golden Monkey]

Katie Couric is an affirmative action token. Her hiring is sexism against men.

Hiring her to do the news was like picking a bichon to guard a building.

She should go back to hosting a woman's show and talk about recipes and fashion tips.

[kimpossible]

and, now, dan rather, that bitter, old man, has come out with some sexist comments why katie couric's numbers have been disappointing. no wonder couric has struggled so much in the face of all this sexism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070612/ap_on_en_tv/cbs_couric

It says he [Rather] accused CBS of objectifying her and that doing it was sexist.

[bluemonq]

and, now, dan rather, that bitter, old man, has come out with some sexist comments why katie couric's numbers have been disappointing. no wonder couric has struggled so much in the face of all this sexism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070612/ap_on_en_tv/cbs_couric
Ok. Take a deep breath, and read it again. Here's my (marked up) excerpt:
Rather, speaking by phone on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program with Joe Scarborough Monday, said CBS had made the mistake of taking the evening news broadcast and "dumbing it down, tarting it up," and playing up topics such as celebrities over war coverage. The comments subsequently appeared in blogs and in a story published Tuesday in the New York Daily News and the New York Post.

While referring to his successor, Couric, as a "nice person," Rather said "the mistake was to try to bring the 'Today' show ethos to the 'Evening News,' and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience."
I don't know if you were watching the CBS Evening News before and after Couric, but moving Couric to the show was not the only change they made. 'Evening News' does indeed feel even less like a news program than it has in recent times... which is quite a feat, seeing how horrible evening news programs in general have gotten since the early 90s. Rather was commenting on the programming and not Couric. Rather made the statement about Couric being a "nice person" because he didn't want to make it seem it was like a personal attack. If he hadn't said that, I'd bet there'd be an uproar about how Rather was directly attacking Couric, and you'd be one of those people complaining.

[deez nuts]

i watch brian williams. women belong in the kitchen and not behind the news desk.

[TB4000]

i watch brian williams. women belong in the kitchen and not behind the news desk.

So long as they're kneeling, I assume.

[haplesshobo]

It says he [Rather] accused CBS of objectifying her and that doing it was sexist.

In the article, it has the following quote:

Moonves, speaking at an event in New York Tuesday morning sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, called the remarks "sexist" and said he was surprised at the amount of negative coverage Couric was receiving.

"She's been on the air for nine months," Moonves said. "Let's give her a break."

So, it seems that it was Moonves who was calling out Rather as sexist.
But, after reading Rather's initial comment, I still don't understand why Rather was branded a sexist for those comments. Seems like a futile attempt by CBS to defend Couric after they spent all that money on her, but its only brought more attention to how badly she's doing. If they were willing to admit they made a mistake with Jericho, how much longer are they going to pretend nothing's wrong with their Katie Couric. And, how the hell did those fans bring back Jericho but the fans of Reunion don't even get a bone.

[kimpossible]

Okay, let me put it another way. In my opinion as a woman, Couric was as tarted up as most female reporters on major networks are. Rather points this out as a tactic and because it's a tactic using a woman I agree it is sexist. Rather pointed out the sexist tactic specifically. Moonves doesn't really have any real defense and goes directly for the term sexist.

It's merely a race to throw out the specific charge of 'sexist' first between Moonves and Rather. He who first accuses, wins, by putting the other on defense. It worked. See bluemonq's post for things I feel were already covered quite in detail.

[Miso]

Katie Couric is incompetent, not because she is a woman, it's just because she is not a serious news person. The only worse boneheaded move would have been to put Stone Phillips as the CBS anchor. What CBS did was a disgrace. They tried to make the evening news into another Entertainment Tonight.

If they were going to keep with a serious News broadcast then they should have hired Gwen Ifill to be the anchor. She is a professional and a great reporter as well as Anchor. She is the moderator for the PBS show "Washington Week in Review" and Senior correspondent for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Ifill