CBS Is All Katie, but Rivals Aren’t Standing By
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: August 20, 2006
To reintroduce Katie Couric to the country as a serious yet still accessible evening news anchor on Sept. 5, CBS has embarked on an image campaign worthy of a presidential candidate.
The network’s efforts will put her face on the front of every city bus in New York next month as part of a promotion that would cost in excess of $10 million if the national television commercials featuring her were bought by an outsider.
For all the maligning of the evening news as a dinosaur lurching toward extinction, the prize CBS is pursuing remains among the most lucrative and high-profile in television: the biggest share of the nearly 25 million viewers who still tune in to the three main news broadcasts each night, and the bulk of the nearly $400 million spent each year by advertisers trying to reach them....
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Little wonder that CBS, which is paying Ms. Couric an estimated $15 million annually, has been convening focus groups at its research center in Las Vegas and other places to ask viewers such questions as how she will fare in a matchup against Mr. Williams, the leader in the Nielsen ratings, and Mr. Gibson, whose program is in second place....
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Among the elements she hopes will set her program apart, she said, is the weeding out of the austere delivery she often detects among correspondents on CBS’s evening news program — and those of her rivals — in favor of a more relaxed approach....(S)he will assume that many viewers have already scanned the headlines of the day, giving her license to jettison some stories entirely or to dispense with others in a digest. Doing so, she said, could free up valuable time — no small thing in a broadcast that is actually 22 minutes — to add depth and context to those issues she deems worthy....Ms. Couric will give over as many as 90 seconds each night to a segment titled “Free Speech,” in which ordinary Americans, as well as scholars and sometimes even comedians, will be allowed to sound off. (Bob) Schieffer will deliver a weekly essay in this slot, probably on Wednesdays....
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/us/20evening.html?hp&ex=1156046400&en=ba901118b83316c9&ei=5094&partner=homepage