(Voice-of-God anchor): Tonight, whither the network evening news? Is broadcast journalism dead, and what would Edward R. Murrow say?
If you think those are the burning questions on the eve of a new age in TV news, you’re not clued in.
Get real and get over it.
What America wants to know today as Katie Couric gets ready for her first night at the helm of the “CBS Evening News” (5:30 p.m. today on KCNC-Channel 4) is how will her smile play at the dinner hour? How informal and fun can she make the newscast without compromising the content? Will her celebrity status overshadow or reinvigorate the broadcast?
CBS has forsworn the “voice-of-God” anchor, with president and CEO Les Moonves calling for a “revolution” in the look and feel of the lagging evening newscast. Moonves chose Couric to bring the job down from the mountaintop to the level of the celebrity-next-door.
Couric says an “evolution” is more likely; she and her producer plan to tweak the format to make it more accessible, let some stories run longer, give Couric room for interviews and include a commentary segment. Her half-hour is positioned as “an alternative” to what’s already out there.
“We’ve been talking a lot about how can the evening newscast be different and look different, and yet also not alienate its core viewers,” Couric told critics.
As Couric assumes the Murrow mantle, naysayers will lament the coronation of “media royalty.” Others will decry the shrinking network news audience as a sign that the evening news has outlived its usefulness.
Realists will acknowledge that a modern media star with a journalism background just might be able to breathe life into a vintage format.
Really, the question is this: Can the nightly half-hour be freshened in a meaningful way, or is that putting makeup on a dinosaur? If the relic can be saved, with a nod to younger audiences drifting to the Internet, Couric might be the personality to pull it off.
She’s already signaled she won’t fly to global hot spots but will debrief knowledgeable correspondents from her berth in New York. She will gladly conduct extended live interviews on the set. She won’t try to outdo Walter Cronkite. Let him claim “avuncular”; she’s something else.
She’s versatile, likable and experienced. Another key difference: pretty pins. Seriously, the distinction of being the first female solo anchor is not to be minimized. Her femininity, occasionally flaunted on “Today,” may be downplayed or accentuated on the evening news as necessary, but it does make her something new. Just leave her publicity photos alone (this week the CBS PR magazine was caught having digitally manipulated her image to look skinny). And don’t call her perky.
Survival by convergence
By the time “The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” “World News with Charlie Gibson and “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” air, most Americans have seen or heard the day’s news on laptops, iPods, radios and cable TV for hours. The networks are taking steps to join that flow of predinner news, and, for online audiences in particular, this is an exciting time.
Tonight Couric becomes the first network news anchor to be simulcast on the Web every evening; CBS executives say an interactive element will be key. Couric also will do an afternoon on-demand iTunes show.
Williams writes a commendable blog, “The Daily Nightly,” and anchors a “v-blog” called “The Early Nightly.” His “NBC Nightly News” is available on iTunes after it airs on TV.
Gibson anchors ABC’s daily 15-minute webcast, at abcnews.com, available on iTunes after the “World News” broadcast.
The evening newscast producers agree analysis is important, beyond ticking off the day’s headlines. They stress context and storytelling. They recognize that the familiarity of their “brands” is valuable in a world of anonymous bloggers, video downloads and insta-pundits.
And they know young people aren’t watching.
“Our goal is obviously on Sept. 5th that whether you’re in your car, on your computer, commuting, listening on your cellphone or, God forbid, watching television like a lot of people do, that the ‘CBS Evening News’ will be available to you,” Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, told critics.
Casting a wider Web
ABC webcast “draws a much younger audience than the broadcast,” according to “World News” executive producer Jon Banner. “So I think we’re expanding our reach to a much younger audience in various ways besides just the (5:30 Mountain Time) broadcast.”
But amid all the hand-wringing, NBC’s Brian Williams supplied this reminder to TV critics in July: “Some of you have written the obituary going back a couple decades of the time slot that I now occupy. It is and remains the largest single source of news in America every day.”
In an age of podcasts, webcasts and 600 channels, the evening newscasts are still, he said, “where people go for a reasoned, sober analysis of the day.”
In terms of ratings, NBC remains the one to beat.
For the season to date, NBC’s “Nightly News” averaged 9.05 million viewers; ABC’s “World News” averaged 8.16 million viewers. CBS’ “Evening News” averaged 7.36 million viewers.
That represents a huge decline from the heyday of the evening newscasts. In 1969, when the nightly news audience peaked, the ABC, CBS and NBC newscasts were watched in 50 percent of American homes. The numbers have fallen 62 percent since 1969, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s 2006 report on the news media.
Nearly 30 million viewers each night make the network newscasts the three most-watched and influential news outlets in America, the PEJ study noted. “Twice as many people watch these programs as are watching the morning shows at any given time.”
TV news viewers tend to be older people – conventional wisdom holds you don’t really care about local, national and global events until you have a mortgage – and older people are anathema to most advertisers. The median age is 60, at least a decade older than for those watching primetime.
CBS is betting younger people will watch the newscast once it is instantly available online. ABC and NBC contend younger audiences want qualitatively different news products and aren’t rushing to simulcast on the Internet.
This week, the news divisions’ old suppertime standbys will endure more scrutiny than they have in years. People tuning in for curiosity factor to CBS are sure to give the broadcast a huge bump. Whether Couric becomes a habit the following week remains to be seen.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
