CBS (CBS-A) News fired the executive producer of the "CBS Evening News" with Katie Couric and put the former CNN and MSNBC president Rick Kaplan in the position.
CBS News President Sean McManus announced that Kaplan would replace Rome Hartman, who had held the position before Couric came on the show.
This was inevitable with the performance of the show and the money they paid Couric. The show is even down by 6 percent from Bob Schieffer's numbers in February of 2006. She's averaging only 7.6 million viewers at this time.
McManus hinted that the show wasn't consistent in its purpose and focus and that he talked to Kaplan to see what his ideas were. He liked what he heard and threw it off of Couric to see what she thought.
Concerning Couric McManus was quick to add that he didn't think this had anything to do with her performance, but rather that there was a need to be "Creating the right show around her..."
It seems at this time that others in the industry concur with that as they said it looked like there was too much input and not a clear sense of who was in charge of the show.
NBC (GE) has also been struggling as Brian Williams and the "Nightly News" has been dropping in the ratings while ABC's (DIS) "World News" with Charles Gibson has won in three of the last four weeks.
Couric is an overpaid teleprompter reader with no creditability.
Bob Schieffer was great.
Of the two, I would still prefer John Roberts
Posted by: Garr | March 8, 2007 4:12 PM | Permalink to Comment