Katie Couric Plots Exit from the CBS Evening News

Rack you both.

 

Back on topic (OK, maybe not), I say give this guy another chance.

 

I suspect fax machines are much less obsolete in other types of businesses than in the journalism industry.

I fax everyday at my non-j job. There are some communications that are considered too sensitive for email (where nothing ever really dies, delete it or no), and it's still a hell of a lot easier to fax a signatured hard-copy document than it is to sign it, scan it into a PDF, and email it.

Improving PDF technology is changing this, but still.

 

Seriously? Those numbers absolutely astound me. I don't know a single person who watches the 6:30 evening news.

Those numbers would kill in primetime. Any links to that?

 

There are still a lot of people in metro areas who have only broadcast TV. No cable, no dish. If the choice is King of Queens for the 85th time on the F-list CW channel or the national evening news, then the choice is clear.

 

Here it is. 25 million viewers a night.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/category/evening-news-ratings

I am reading it, and I still don't believe it.

 

Those are total viewers, which sounds to me like viewers added up for the whole week.

 

The fact the the CBS Nightly News is on in every hospital ER waiting room doesn't mean that 6 million are really watching it.

 

Television watching is a habit. The average age of the viewers of all three cable news networks is over 60, and I'll bet the same is true and more so for the network news. There are a whole lot of people 60 and over (including me, although I don't watch the evening news much) in this country.

 

Wait. You all don't watch Jersey Shore?

 

The numbers are the same when you look at total newspaper circulation. Lots of people still buying papers, for a business that's got one foot in the grave or something like that.

On the other hand, of CBS's viewers, two thirds, or four million people, are either over 54, or under 25.

 

Just look at the ads they run during the nightly news. It's all big pharma-Lipitor, Cialis, et cetera. It's the greying of the market (is the median age of a newspaper reader still about 61?).