Cuppacafe

Listen, I'm not going to tell you I'm an expert on the broadcasting of news. I'll just give my opinion and say that it's just one man's take on things.

More than one pundit openly speculated that CBS Evening News should have not put Katie Couric at the chair for their evening news broadcast, and in replies on other blogs, I've been politely skeptical.

Now that the CBS News is trying to do damage control over their huge mistake of hiring Ms. Couric to read the news, I guess the skeptics like me can come out and say, "I told you so."

I'm not a fan of Katie, back in the early days of the TODAY show, and always thought she was somehow overrated. People KNOW her from doing that show. She didn't even read the news on the TODAY show, because somehow being the perky co-host of the show was her primary job there. The actual morning news reader is most likely paid LESS than the perky hostess. As a matter of fact, exactly who gets to be the perky one on the show is probably a very managed situation, with who getting whatever to say and whomever to interview in exactly which hour of the program highly moderated by off screen types. Ann Curry is the TODAY news reader of record, and is known for a more serious news persona. When Katie Couric was to leave, did Ms. Curry get the better paying "perky hostess" slot? Of course not. I've seen her do it; she's fine, but she's not the best person for the job.

That slot for the "perky hostess" is for people who are best at being a Master of Ceremonies. Newspeople shouldn't try to be both. It just doesn't work.

Then you have Katie Couric, and no matter what she can do on camera now, everyone who's ever seen her knows her as "the perky one" even though it's been several long years since she was last truly fun to watch.

Katie can sound somber. I tuned in tonight to the CBS News, just to see her read the news. It was Katie alright, but I still thought she'd stop and do an interview with Brad Pitt or something.

CBS News would have done better by hiring Ann Curry. She is actually better at that sort of thing, and more to the point, people know that's what Ann does.

But CBS is stuck with Katie and that very large contract and absolutely dismal ratings with her in that news chair.

What should CBS do? Blame sexism?[FT]

No. I can tell you what CBS should do to fix this. What's more, it would work.

Have Katie Couric visit America. And not just for stunt ratings two weeks before the Iowa primaries, either. I mean, have her actually go and sit down and be interviewed by the local CBS news station in Miami. In Memphis. Minneapolis. Other towns that start with an "M". Spend all of September visiting the local news affiliates. Get her picture in the paper worrying about local crime issues, and then do the Evening News on a remote. Sure, it's not like giving a dramatic broadcast from the Green Zone in Iraq, but that's no longer needed. Katie is way too much the New York girl. I realize that New York may not see things the way the rest of the country does, but they certainly have no clue as to why we think the media centers of the country are isolated. I'll repeat my thought here: You don't have to have a reason to send your news person to a remote spot just to go and visit. There doesn't have to be a real reason to have Katie go to Miami to do the remote. Send her and people there will NOTICE.

Then have people vote on which major city she should do a broadcast in next. (Keep the number of choices few and connected and within a driving distance) Make sure the places are away from the media centers but still highly populated areas. Miami. Atlanta. Raleigh. Memphis. St. Louis. Dallas. San Antonio. Denver. etc. Do two weeks of this, and I'll guarantee that the ratings will go up.

Sure, it's a stunt. A cheap one, too. Doing it would revitalize both the CBS news division and Katie's reputation as a news person... or prove that both need a major overhaul.

CBS News, this is America calling. Answer the clue phone.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Network Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.