Katie Couric talks to USA Today about dismal ratings:
Last week, the first week of the crucial May ratings sweeps period, Evening News drew just 6 million viewers, its lowest ratings since 1987. By comparison, surging ABC World News, anchored by Charles Gibson, scored 8 million viewers — the ninth time in 13 weeks that it has beaten NBC Nightly News, anchored by Brian Williams, which drew 7.5 million. That was NBC’s fourth-lowest number in 20 years.
CBS News president Sean McManus says there is no panic about Evening News or Couric, and there has “never been any discussion” about changing anchors. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say we like being down. I continue to be very optimistic.”
Network and cable news veteran Rick Kaplan, who was tapped six weeks ago as Evening News’ executive producer, says he and Couric have returned to a more traditional, hard-news broadcast. He says CBS erred in trying to change its tone and style when Couric arrived. In addition to “all the things viewers had to get used to, the fact that what they were seeing wasn’t anything like a traditional broadcast was too jarring.”
Says Couric: “Evening-news viewers are very traditional and set in their ways, and I think it can be unsettling to have a new person there. I think it just requires some time.”
Former CBS anchor Dan Rather says Couric can still succeed but has faced a “tremendous challenge” from the minute she signed with CBS. “Not only was she trying a different kind of broadcast, but she was anchoring at a different time of day with different audience expectations and moving from a different network.”