Is Couric out at CBS?

Posted Apr 9th 2008 9:07PM by Peter Cohan
Filed under: Rumors, Television, Time Warner (TWX), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Media World

Broadcasting and Cable reports that Katie Couric, the anchor of CBS Corp.'s (NYSE: CBS) Evening News, may leave well before her $15 million a year contract expires in 2011. It suggests Couric could leave as early as next year, following the presidential inauguration in January.

Why would she leave? It looks like low ratings are forcing her out. Despite the media blitz surrounding her 2006 move from NBC's Today show, Couric did little to help the ratings, as CBS Evening News has struggled to find ratings ground behind NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

While I rarely watch her show, the few times I have she seems to be drained of life -- it is as if she is being forced to play a role that she finds excruciatingly difficult to perform. I think there is a place for her on TV but that is not it. I will be interested to see who comes in after her.

Update: The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reports that Couric might replace Larry King when his contract expires in 2009. It notes: "One possible new job for the Ms. Couric: succeeding Larry King at Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE: TWX) CNN [which shares a parent with BloggingStocks]. Mr. King, who is 74 years old, has a contract with the network into 2009. CNN President Jon Klein, a CBS veteran with close ties to some at the network, has expressed admiration for Ms. Couric's work, and the two are friends."

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Tags: CBS, inthenews, Katie Couric, KatieCouric, Larry King, LarryKing

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-15-2008 @ 4:16AM

dee said...

It would be sad if they let her go, as she 'is' good. I knew when she changed jobs it was not the right move for her, as it's tough to be a nightly news person, but she has plenty of money to finally stay home and be w/her kids. She'll be back in some form, some day, if they let her go. She will be missed.

4-09-2008 @ 10:32PM

jwynn said...

The problem with the CBS news with Katie is the producer, not Katie. All they have Katie doing is introducing other people who report on the stories. They don't need someone with her credentials to do that. Let Katie do the reporting (i.e., more face time) and that will solve the ratings problem. I bet that in the 30 minute news report she has no more than 6 minutes on screen.

4-09-2008 @ 10:40PM

xioemail-hsc said...

I believe Couric flopped because she is awful (I don't care to analyze why) I never watched any other channel, but CBS because it had great correspondents. I'm old enough to have watched Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner. Dan Rather held the tradition as best he could, but CBS wanted to imitate others, like Fox News. These were mature correspondents who told the news with composure. I simply could not stomach Couric. Bad news is not news, and it's not entertainment. If CBS News goes back to basics, I will turn my TV for the evening news again.

4-09-2008 @ 11:09PM

Ted said...

Gee, we didn't see this coming did we. Ms. Couric was a flop from day one. The decision to put her in the anchor chair was about as stupid as they come. There must be morons running network news operations these days because not one of them reports real news. It's all celeb crap and sensationalism upon which to hang pharmaceutical ads. Couric is a product of that kind of thinking - all fluff and celebrity. Why don't they just be honest and call the broadcast "The CBS Evening Crap Fest". As long as we keep lapping up this mediocrity, they will continue to feed it to us.

4-10-2008 @ 6:58AM

al coholic said...

I think she may be a victim of changing times. Back when Walter was doing the news virtually the entire nation watched every single night. Only newspapers and weekly periodicals filled us in on the local stuff and the in depth news.

Nowadays I never watch the evening news and I suspect a lot of others don't either. We don't have to wait until 6:30 and have our news spoon fed to us. We can access any type of news instantly on the Net. We can get updates by the minute on any of the news or specialty information tv channels. And we can decide for ourselves which stories we want to pursue in depth.

The nightly news model just doesn't work for this generation which is probably why CBS is considering leaving the fray and subbing it out to CNN. Why blow all that money on the huge infrastructure required to run the news department when it seems to me that not enough people even bother to watch?