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Ratings tell mixed story about Couric's success
2006-10-05
A month after Katie Couric's heavily promoted debut as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," the viewership ratings presented by Nielsen Media Research offer a mixed message about the extent of her success. By one measure -- ratings for advertisers' favored news audience of adults aged 25 to 54 -- Couric's first four weeks on the job at CBS gave her network its first monthly victory over rivals NBC and ABC in nearly 20 years. In terms of total viewers, the CBS newscast finished the final week of September where it has languished for over a decade, third place, although its weekly average, 7.5 million viewers, was closer to second-place ABC than in the past. NBC led the pack again last week with 8.2 million viewers, followed by ABC with 7.6 million. During the first two days of this week, with headlines dominated by a sex scandal on Capitol Hill and a school shooting in Pennsylvania, CBS slipped further, trailing ABC by more than 1 million viewers. Executives at all three broadcasters agree the U.S. network news ratings derby has become a tighter three-way race since Couric joined the fray on September 5. But is the former star of NBC's top-rated morning show "Today" living up to her reported $15 million salary? At stake in the battle for supremacy among the Big Three network newscasts is a nightly audience of roughly 25 million viewers and $450 million in annual advertising revenue. Gauging the headway Couric appears to be making against Brian Williams and Charles Gibson, her counterparts at "NBC Nightly News" and "ABC World News," depends on how one reads the Nielsen numbers. For its part, CBS has touted its year-to-year gains for September, seizing on Nielsen figures showing its evening newscast has grown 35 percent in the 25-54 demographic and 22 percent in its overall audience. At the same time, NBC and ABC both suffered double-digit losses in total viewers and adults 25 to 54 from year to year. "Whether or not we're first, second or third is not something we're focusing on," CBS News President Sean McManus told Reuters on Wednesday. "I'm really focused on the long term ... and slow, gradual growth." IN DECLINE? NBC and ABC point to Couric's week-to-week decline since her CBS debut and insist a September-to-September comparison offers limited insight given the publicity accompanying her installation as the first female solo anchor of a major network newscast. They also note CBS already had bounced back dramatically in the ratings during the 18 months its evening newscast was anchored by Couric's predecessor, Bob Schieffer. The 7.5 million viewers averaged by Couric last week was just 76,000 ahead of Schieffer's average for the entire previous season. The consensus is it will take more time for the dust to settle on the altered landscape left by Dan Rather's resignation at CBS after a botched report on President George W. Bush's military record, Tom Brokaw's retirement at NBC and the death of ABC's Peter Jennings. Independent network news analyst Andrew Tyndall said big shifts in viewer loyalty were typically driven by major news events, when viewers see how anchors perform under pressure. In that regard, Couric remains untested. "If no audience comes to her when there is major hard news, then this gamble that CBS made throwing so much money at her will be a failure," he said. Reuters Muzi.com News
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