The "Free Speech" segments on Katie Couric's CBS Evening News are being cut back to just a couple of times a week — maybe even less sometimes, exec producer Rome Hartman tells the Washington Post. And in the future, the people whose opinions are being expressed will be less-famous ones, the kind that don't already have a platform for mouthing off. Holy smoke, this is my big chance to speak out on... aw, crud, I need an issue.
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CBS Evening News again placed third and averaged one well-coiffed hair over seven million viewers last week, representing Katie Couric's fourth straight week of declining ratings after premiering to an audience of 13.6 mil. Still, CBS notes that its Evening News is the only of the three network newscasts to have more viewers than the same week a year ago. "Where we were last week or even in the weeks to come is not as important as where we are next year, and even the year after that," spins CBS News president Sean McManus. "We are focused on the long term."
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Katie Couric, CBS Evening News
Former Today coanchor Katie Couric will take over the desk at CBS Evening News on Sept. 5. The program will have a new set, new theme music ("Aaron Copeland-esque," says Couric) and some touches that will aim to distinguish it from NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and ABC World News with Charles Gibson (which are ahead in the ratings). The Biz recently talked to Couric about the challenges ahead.
TVGuide.com: Are you nervous at all?Katie Couric: Yeah, of course. It's a new job and a new challenge and something I haven't done before on a full-time basis. So I would say I'm slightly nervous, but also really excited and anxious to get started.
TVGuide.com: What's your biggest
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Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America
Jim Murphy has returned to the morning-TV wars. On July 19 he was named the new executive producer of ABC's Good Morning America, which has been entrenched in second place behind NBC's Today for over a decade. But Murphy knows it could be worse: In the 1990s he helmed CBS This Morning, which struggled to get attention because the network still disdained morning TV's breezy blend of newsmaker interviews, cooking segments and pop concerts. That's no longer the case. As Murphy told the Biz, morning shows are now the main profit engines of all news divisions and are getting more attention than ever. We talked to Murphy about the new gig he's taking on after a six-year stint at CBS Evening News.
TVGuide.com: You left morning TV in 1998. How has it changed since then?Jim Murphy: It's become more competitive, for all the obvious reasons. It's the on
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Tom Brokaw, Global Warming: What You Need to Know
Since leaving the NBC Nightly News anchor chair in 2004, Tom Brokaw has been anything but "retired." As host of Global Warming: What You Need to Know (premiering Sunday at 9 pm/ET on Discovery Channel), the newsman posits some reasons for our planet's higher fever.
TV Guide: Why'd you get involved with the documentary?
Tom Brokaw: I've been watching [the issue] for some time, and like a lot of people I've been trying to figure out the difference between fact and fiction. The scientific consensus is now pretty overwhelming. There are still scientists out there who will be dismissive of it, but more and more are signing on. What's been so striking to me is that more
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Question: Read the Dispatch on Katie Couric. Agreed with everything you said. I've read a lot about her leaving Today, but in all that I've read, I haven't seen any mention of when she'll actually start anchoring CBS Evening News. Do you have any idea?
Answer: She'll begin her reign in the CBS Evening News anchor chair in September. That's when Meredith Vieira settles into Katie's old job at Today as well.
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Charles Gibson
After Charles Gibson was named anchor of ABC World News Tonight, he got a call from a colleague saying, "The tortoise has won the race." Indeed, after all the hype about traveling anchors, webcasts and updates for the West Coast, the network turned to its most experienced and least flashy veteran to head its flagship broadcast. Gibson takes over for Elizabeth Vargas, who has been flying solo since coanchor Bob Woodruff sustained
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Meredith Vieira, The View
History is about to repeat itself at NBC's Today.
Any minute now, The View's Meredith Vieira will sign on as coanchor to replace Katie Couric after she leaves to join the CBS Evening News. But it looks like Vieira will keep her other gig as host of the syndicated
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At the top of Thursday's The View, Meredith Vieira announced that she is leaving the talker to fill the vacancy being left by Katie Couric at NBC's Today, effective this September. Couric, meanwhile, may face an uphill battle as the just-christened anchor of CBS Evening News. In a poll conducted by TV Guide and the Associated Press, 49 percent say they prefer Couric as a morning-show cohost, versus 29 percent who say they'll prefer her in the evening. But Couric has the vote of no less than venerable news vet Walter Cronkite, who tells the New York Post, "I think she's highly capable and I'm absolutely delighted that she's come over to CBS."
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My favorite TV moment this week (granted, I've been on the road and haven't watched a lot) occurred early Wednesday morning, as Matt Lauer defused the mawkish sentiment on the Today set in the wake of Katie Couric's long-awaited announcement that she would be leaving soon for CBS.
"Also coming up in this half hour..." Lauer quipped, as the Today crew (a great group, as I can attest to from the experience of being on the show a handful of times) broke into laughter.
What I loved about that gag was how it underscored the fact that life on Today would go on, no doubt quite robustly, after the Katie Couric era ends. (There have been so many: the Bryant Gumbel-Jane Pauley era; the Barbara Walters-Hugh Downs era; and so on).
This is a historic shift, no question, and shouldn't be underestimated even as it's overanaly
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