In case you missed the news, here is one of many articles about it today.
She is leaving to take over the anchor position on the low rated CBS nightly news.
Actually taking a pay cut to do it…NBC offered her $20 million per year to stay on, and CBS offered her $13 million per year to come to them.
Personally, I like the TODAY show and yet I can barely tolerate her…she seems like she would be a real bitch if you got to know her, and there have been many reports that she is quite the primadonna. I won’t miss her one iota and will continue to watch the TODAY show in the mornings, and have no intention of watching her on CBS nightly news.
You know, I keep reading this here, but I rarely get to see the actual reports. is this some kind of Jekylll/Hyde thing? She drops the mask of being a pleasant, somewhat ill-equipped airhead ditz when the camera light goes off and suddenly becomes a bitch-on-wheels uber-diva ego-monster? It would be interesting to read about this transformation, I’d think.
I’m bummed. I usually watch the CBS news in the evening (correction: usually have the CBS news on while I’m fixing supper, reading my mail, etc.), and now won’t be able to, because she annoys the hell out of me.
Anchor of the evening news? WTF? Katie fucking Couric?
What’s the over/under on how long she will stay as anchor?
My take is not shorter than six months but no longer than ten. Ratings might see a slight rise from people checking in to see if Couric can make the grade, then drop as they find she can’t. Just MHO.
And so continues the dumbing down of America. But look at the bright side: Maybe Katie will soften those hard news stories by giggling and flashing her legs.
Last night, CBS began its promo, referring to the “Cronkite to Couric legacy.”
Never have I been more glad that my parents raised me on NBC news. I loved Brokaw, not so much taken with Williams, but I won’t watch Couric. Partially because I don’t really like her, mostly because I don’t watch CBS news anyway. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
Well, it’s not like you couldn’t find about, oh, a zillion examples of this in the history of show business. And the news has become just another branch of show business.
What’s so weird about this choice is that it never works. It’s like all the newspapers who try to attract younger audiences by providing “hip” contents. All that happens is that the older base of readers are offended and the younger readers are put off. (And Katie is actually older than Brian Williams, Elizabeth Vargas or Bob Woodruff, ironically.) Bob Schieffer was increasing the ratings. John Roberts, the obvious proper heir, left the network for CNN. Lose-lose.
After a short increase in ratings due to curiosity, this will be a long-term loser for CBS as everybody is saying. The entire world appears to understand this except for Les Moonves. Who, BTW, kept insisting that he was going to “blow up” the evening news format for something different. Ha.
Why Katie? Can anyone explain this? I couldn’t spin this as a good thing if I were being paid to do so.
Okay, I’m no so much a big Katie fan (don’t really feel one way or the other) Just playing devil’s advocate here, but Katie Couric started off in hard journalism. She was assigned to the Pentagon when she first started with NBC. The problem is that for the last 15 (? don’t really remember when she started) years she’s been co-anchor of a show that is, for the most part, kinda cute and fluffy. I’ve seen some Dateline reports she did that I thought were pretty good. She also did fine during those times when she filled in for Tom Brokow, who, incidentally, also was once a Today show anchor.
Re: the diva rumors–who knows? Maybe she once had a bad day and it got blown out of proportion. Really, who cares? I would be inclined to take most of those rumors with a grain of salt. That kind of thing is part and parcel of working in the public eye.
I don’t think there’s anything bad about her wanting to tackle something different. She could easily have taken the extra bunches of money NBC was tossing at her and stayed where she is (not that her salary decrease to 13 million dollars will be leaving her in the poorhouse) .
I won’t be tuning in when she makes her CBS debut, but it has nothing to do with some belief that she’s a bad journalist. Just prefer Brian Williams.
And also, my name isn’t Katie Couric. Just thought I should add that.
All I can say is what I’ve said in the Pit Thread about her.
She’s been the face of the Today Show for 15 years. They have won their time slot against GMA, and the CBS morning show for 537 consecutive weeks.
So, however hip it may be to hate Katie, apparently a large portion of the population likes her (the option would be that everyone loves Lauer and Roker and the format of the show soooo much that they merely abide Katie, but I don’t think that’s true).
CBS Evening News is last in the ratings.
Couric has done many serious pieces. She’s won Emmy(s?). Keep in mind that the early part of Today is a more standard news show, not the fluffy stuff that she’s more known for, so CBS must have liked what they saw from that.
And, remember, a news anchor doesn’t have to be the biggest brain on the block either. They’re not doing the analysis and investigation.
All in all, she wouldn’t have been my first choice, but people are expressing such dismay and confusion over it. I think that all you need to know about the decision is this: 537 consecutive weeks at number 1.
(I saw the 537 yesterday. I can’t find it again, but this indicates they’ve won their week every week for more than 10 years)
I have a feeling that come September, anyone who tunes into CBS Evening News looking for the Today show hostess with legs will be disappointed. Katie will spend the summer trying to get back into the news groove. She has done news in the past, and I’m sure she can do it again. But TV viewers are creatures of habit (because let’s face it, there isn’t much of an appreciable difference between what you can watch on any of the morning shows…) and the 4 or 5 million people who watch Today are likely to say “That’s not my Katie.”
I think she’ll do a fine job as evening news anchor. Give it 12 months and people will remark on how much gravitas she has. But I don’t think CBS will beat Brian Williams and NBC or Elizabeth Vargas and ABC by the end of the year.
Trunk, this is the “she’s very good at one thing so she must also be very good at something completely different” fallacy.
You can argue that the two shows aren’t so different, and that NBC has a long history of taking its news anchors from the Today show. But CBS isn’t NBC, and today’s Today show isn’t what it was two or four decades ago. A high Q rating is not a qualification for an evening news anchor, who needs to do much more than sit behind the desk and read intros for four minutes a night. The anchor is the network’s public news face for coverage of disasters, inaugurations, breaking news, and all the events that take place outside that half-hour an evening.
Perhaps Couric will prove you right. No way to know until next year. (CBS hasn’t even announced when she will take over, or whether changes will be made to the format to accommodate her. We may have to wait until January 2008.) My public prediction is that this will be a disaster. Tune in tomorrow to see who’s right.
Well, all I’m saying here is that that has to be the basis of CBS’s decision. You did say, “Can anyone explain this?” (I didn’t know how rhetorical that question was).
I guess I am arguing that the shows aren’t too different. She’s not a clown. She’s not Al Roker or Ira Joe Fischer.
The way people are talking about her, you’d think she came on TV on September 12th and said, “I wonder how this will affect the fall fashions.” She’s been there.
I don’t care about being proven right on this. If it’s the worst news broadcast in history, but CBS is number one, whoever made the decision is going to be proven right.
In my opinion, her attempts to do more serious stuff is embarrassing to watch. If the best that even her defenders can say is that she has, on occasion been “fine” or “pretty good”, she’s in big trouble! (I know you’re only playing Devil’s Advocate, so I’m not putting this on anyone in particular.)
Gravitas? One of the more preposterous statements in SDMB history. :rolleyes:
Gravitas is 5-10 years at the foreign desk, doing hard-hitting investigative journalism on hard news stories, digging for facts when others aren’t, going brain-to-brain with controversial newsmakers, and/OR paying your dues year after year in “serious broadcast journalism.” It’s not merchandising your legs, giggling through news stories, playing cutesy one minute/serious the next and then cutesy again and again. Couric is a 48- year old woman who all too often acted 15 and ridden that act to the bank. Couric is no doubt perfect for the Today Show, but as THE anchor of CBS news? That’s like sending Howdy Doody to Navy Seals training.
That said, I sense what you’re really getting at and agree. Broadcast journalism as we once knew it in decline. The Katie Couric acquisition may be remembered as one of three critical watersheds. If trends continue and Couric survives–I think both are inevitable–within 20 years, the new crop of dunces will think her Morrow himself. An Ed Murrow with great gams.
But my problem is that even if she didn’t say this, I can HEAR her saying this–she is marshmallow fluff and perky fluff at that. I don’t respect her as a journalist (ha!) or as an anchor. I don’t watch morning TV, but my pts do and I have seen enough of her to last a lifetime.
I miss Peter Jennings more than ever–his death was the end of an era. There is one local anchor I respect (Tom Majors) but I couldn’t tell what network he is now on. I wont’ tune into CBS because of Katie, but wasn’t watching anyway.
