The announcement yesterday that Katie Couric will soon leave NBC for CBS has set in motion a dizzying chain reaction of events that will impact each of the Big Three networks in numerous ways, calling attention to the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Consider these dramatic developments brought on by Couric‘s decision, some positive, some not.
Couric leaves NBC at a time when the struggling network cannot afford another ratings slump in any demographic category. Presumably, Today will take a hit when its biggest star departs, regardless of who replaces Couric or what changes are made to the show. How will the already beleaguered network spin this during the fast-approaching broadcast upfront season?
Couric takes over CBS Evening News at a time when that program, with the immensely likeable Bob Schieffer behind its anchor desk, is for the first time in years building an audience. News viewers are creatures of habit, and millions have recently chosen to settle in with Schieffer, the most easygoing and reassuring network news anchor since Walter Cronkite, rather than NBC’s Brian Williams or ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas. Will they welcome so dramatic a change?
Couric becomes involved with CBS’ 60 Minutes at a time when that once-formidable franchise is in need of newer, younger, fresher talent. She does so not at the expense of its aging veterans, but in addition to their ongoing participation in the show. She’ll bring a lot to this program, which should enjoy significant renewed media attention (and, presumably, a corresponding ratings spike) in the fall.
NBC suffers not only a powerful blow to Today but also the loss of Couric as a high-profile contributor to Dateline NBC. These are dark days indeed for NBC’s sorry newsmagazine, currently confined to two death slots: Sunday night opposite 60 Minutes and Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET.
As of this writing, it appears that NBC Universal has decided to go outside its expansive network group and recruit as Couric‘s replacement Meredith Vieira, a veteran journalist and long-time co-host of ABC’s The View. What will that do to morale at NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC? It seems somewhat bizarre that during the last ten years NBC has not been able to develop an obvious and satisfying replacement for Couric from within its own vast talent pool at both its broadcast and cable divisions.
With Vieira exiting The View, whom will ABC recruit to take her place? It will need to find someone who can function as a calming influence amid the colorful and controversial contributions of co-hosts Joy Behar, Star Jones and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, as Vieira often does. Vieira has not been above making the occasional outrageous remark or doing ridiculous things, but most of the time she has effectively grounded her easily excitable co-stars, and she is the only person in that group (outside of occasional co-host Barbara Walters) with the news chops to properly introduce the headlines of the day. Her departure will leave an empty void at the center of the show.
ABC’s Good Morning America, which during the last two years has periodically come within striking distance of Today in the ratings, will upon Couric‘s departure from the latter have its strongest opportunity yet to become the No. 1 morning newscast. Expect big things from this show in the months ahead.
One thing is certain: Couric‘s arrival at CBS will be historic, in that she will become the first solo female anchor of a broadcast network newscast in television history. The women who came before her–Barbara Walters in 1976, Connie Chung in 1993 and Elizabeth Vargas earlier this year, were each paired with a male anchor–Walters with Harry Reasoner at ABC, Chung with Dan Rather at CBS, Vargas with Bob Woodruff. Walters and Chung experienced dramatic high-profile failure. The Walters disaster was especially startling given that she was a news superstar on the rise and was also hosting hit prime time interview specials. Like Couric, Walters left a long run on the Today show to try her hand at another network’s nightly news desk.
Is Couric the right person for the CBS position? Outside of Schieffer, who has made clear his desire to reduce his work commitments, no other serious candidates have surfaced since Rather left the job last year. We won’t know how effectively Couric fits until well into the 2006-07 season. But it will be interesting to watch her fill and maintain a largely serious role without benefit of the many relaxed, lighthearted moments that punctuated most of her work on Today, except when she was immersed in enormous and enormously dark stories (in particular the 1999 Columbine massacre and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001). Couric on Today always seemed less comfortable conducting serious interviews about heavy, unpleasant matters, and she always looked and sounded uneasy reporting grim news stories with her “serious face” on. Schieffer’s recent success makes clear that people of all ages still respond to a reassuring voice of wisdom and experience delivering the news, as they once did to that of Walter Cronkite and, more recently, Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. Can Couric supply those essential qualities?
CBS Corporation president and chief executive officer Leslie Moonves has in recent years expressed his desire to transform his network’s nightly news program into something different from the broadcasters’ traditional and tiring evening news model. Moonves and his troops have pondered all kinds of changes, from a multiple anchor format to a show that originates from several locations around the country, if not the world.
Surely, moving a woman into the anchor chair represents a significant step in a new direction. The next question for CBS is, when the excitement of her arrival fades, will CCouric be at the helm of just another ordinary evening news program, or will other changes be implemented that might transform the show itself into the nightly news leader? Remember, it wasn’t just the arrival of Katie Couric that transformed Today into a morning-news powerhouse. The show’s success also came as a result of NBC’s decision to move the entire production into a storefront style studio and take much of the action outside. Good Morning America and CBS’ The Early Show eventually duplicated those changes, but Today got there first, did it best and has remained the daypart champion.
