What's Wrong With Katie?

The Times has run several articles about Katie Couric's disappointing third place finish in the nightly news game. Today's Times reports that, "In the latest week’s ratings, “CBS Evening News” had its worst performance since the Nielsen company installed its “people meter” ratings system 20 years ago." For $15 million dollars and a four day a week job, she really should be doing better.

The Times wonders if the numbers are bad, because people aren't ready for a woman to deliver the serious news or because Katie sucks.

It nearly impossible for me to watch the 6:30 news. That's prime time in my house. I'm making dinner, helping with homework, shuffling to sports games. But I've been very interested in the Katie question, so I've made a point of checking her out several times in the past month.

My ruling... Katie sucks. We all know Katie after years on the Today show cheerfully reporting on the latest exercise craze and shoe styles. Now, she's all stiff and serious talking about suicide bombers in Iraq, and it just doesn't work. There is definitely a type-casting problem, but I could get over that if she did a better job delivering the news. She tries too hard for gravitas and instead ends up over acting. Funereal.

She might do a better job grabbing her old audience of soccer moms, if the news were on at a different time. The 6:30 news is a dinosaur of an era when men returned from work at 5:30 and the wives had meatloaf on the table at 6:00. My husband nukes leftovers at 7:00. Often later. By 6:30, I have already checked out the Times website five or six times, read the blogs, listened to the local news show on the radio on the way to work. I would still watch the evening news though, if it was on at 8:00 and if I didn't have to watch Katie over acting.

Is there a chick component to Katie's low ratings? Are people distracted by her clothes and make-up and more willing to trust a bland, white man in a grey suit? Is there still lingering prejudice about women talking about politics? How can that be in an era of Pelosi and Hillary?

Comments

[luolin]

I haven't watched the evening news regularly since I was in high school (the Cronkite years). My husband used to watch the Lehrer news hour when he got home on time, but now he gets all his news and analysis online. Nothing to do with Katie in our cases.

[Melinda]

Interesting perspective.

I was never a Katie Couric fan, so I wouldn't gravitate to the CBS Evening News anyways.

I was happy that a woman got the anchor spot, though, which was a significant event; for this reason alone I tuned in a few times.

You put it a good way: it's a type-casting problem. She needs to have gravitas and this requirement is in direct opposition to her professional personality, which the public has had a relationship with for years.

Perhaps a teething period while the public adjusts to the New Katie...?

[jen]

I don't watch the news regularly, but clearly there is space for news, it just has to be at a different time. Look at the Newshour on PBS. When Jim Lehrer is away, a woman (can't remember her name!) frequently anchors it and is awesome. Katie is a personality, not a real reporter or analyst and you can tell.

I agree, 6.30 news is at a bad time and the format is ridiculous. 7 minutes on Iraq, 5 min on the queen...its enough.

[kip]

I think that she does a great job but they shoudl spend it on CBSNEWS.COM and point to new media in that manner. Dominate teh new media, co post or pull a frontline and put all of the corresponding people to the online site and you'll end up with a more agile userbase that in all likely hood will be looking at the site several times a day.

[bj]

I never watch the evening news, and never have. I'm isolated enough that I don't exactly understand who does watch. Who has time in their day at 6:30 to watch TV? At 6:30, I'm either eating dinner, planning dinner, or driving home.

I listen to the news on the radio, and rely on the web a lot for my news. I also read the NYTimes on paper, some of the time. I don't see a future for TV news, and thus, can't evaluate Katie in TV news. But, I can't tell if I'm an outlier, or a trend.

bj

[Laura]

I used to Tivo the 6:30 news, but now I'm bored with the news because I've usually read it all online or heard it on NPR. And Katie really bugs me, which I've written about before. I think she personalized the news too much.

[Mrs. Ewer]

Working and commuting past 6:30 is much more typical in and around big cities than in small town Pennsylvania, where I grew up. Grade school teachers and many blue collar workers are home at 6:30. So are the millions of retirees -- like my grandparents and in-laws -- who faithfully watch the evening news during dinner. But retirees and people in flyover country are generally more conservative than Katie Couric. Many people who voted for Bush haven’t watched CBS since the fake memo debacle. Note that Fox News dominates this timeslot.

I often watch TV around 6:30 while I make or eat dinner. I’m much more likely to watch a cooking or documentary show since I get my news online. If I want news, I’ll tune in to the quick recaps on CNN Headline News and MSNBC, or watch Fox. I have no patience for Couric’s soft, left-slanted feature stories, or for the way she breathlessly announces "news" I read on the Drudge Report 2 days ago.

[K]

If we watch the news, we watch PBS. If the TV is on when the kids are awake, they are pulled directly towards it. Especially for the network news. We don't want them watching it, so we turn it right off.

But Lehrer and Gwen Ifill don't seem to attract the kids the same way. They'll walk right by. With the network news, they stay glued to the TV until we turn it off.

So, when I do turn on the news while I'm making dinner - it's to PBS. Never to Katie.

Perhaps she is too shiny and uses too many graphics? Or uses kid-pleasing subliminal messages?

[Allison]

Traditionally, the evening news in Israel was broadcast at NINE in the evening. That was when there was one government station.

Then commercial TV arrived, and they decided to grab the news audience by moving the show earlier to 8 PM and leave more of prime time for entertainment.

I agree that the timing of the news in the U.S. is for some fantasy era. But they'd never give up the revenues of having Entertainment in prime time to have it later.

I think it should go at 7:30.

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