Word: couric
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...kind of--just with a different anchor. Nearly a year after taking over ABC's second-place evening newscast, Charles Gibson is neck and neck in the ratings with NBC's Brian Williams, and Gibson recently won ABC its first news sweeps month in more than 10 years. Katie Couric, who was supposed to be the agent of change, lags about 2 million viewers behind...
Gibson's success has been seen as a vindication of old-fashioned gravitas over flash. Which is fair enough; Gibson is a trustworthy anchor heading a good, consistent newscast--Sanka to Couric's espresso. But while he may have struck a blow for TV's past, his success and Couric's struggle may not be the best sign for the evening news' future...
...decision to reformat its newscast and poach Couric may have been overhyped and gimmicky. But it was also optimistic, quixotic, even. Journalists dismissed CBS CEO Les Moonves, a show-biz guy and former actor, for taking it on himself to "blow up" the news. But at least he believed something few of them did: that the evening news could reverse its long decline, attracting brand-new viewers with all their original teeth, rather than just fighting over a shrinking...
...When the dust cleared, the overall nightly news audience was around 25 million and gradually falling, much as before. And Gibson, the one anchor to have a bit of success, was the anti-Couric: avuncular, male, older (he replaced Elizabeth Vargas, two decades his junior) and unreliant on innovations like Op-Ed segments. Hiring him implied an entirely different view of TV news and its future. CBS was programming for the viewers network news wanted. ABC was programming to keep the viewers network news already had, for as long as the Grim Reaper would permit...
...defense, the show does have a few bright spots. A few jokes are genuinely funny, like the idea that arguments over the height of James Brown are the third-leading cause of death in Alabama or that Katie Couric (whose evening news ratings have fallen) signs off with, “Why, God? Why?” The two anchors have honed their deadpan timing to be comparable to the Daily Show’s or Weekend Update’s anchors. The guest experts successfully create characters deep enough to be plausible but nutty enough to be funny...