I don't follow the television news game that much. I almost never watch television news, broadcast or cable. But I eyeball the numbers. I keep reading about how the ratings are so much better these days for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. First I read Tom Shales slobbering all over Ms. Couric in the Washington Post, and then today I even saw our friends at TV Newser write a piece about Couric that mentioned ratings and said, But recently the ratings have greatly improved.
I scratched my head and thought, "huh? Really? WTF!?" because my basic regular eyeballing of the broadcast news standings is that CBS is still mired in last place and that from that basic scanning things didn't seem a whole lot different than they ever were.
I understand about Couric being a media darling. A lot of people loved her treatment of Sarah Palin, and hey, I too think she's much cuter than Brian Williams. But it seems like Williams is the one who should be getting all the love.
Broadcast news ratings got some recent boost from the election and inaugural week, and in the first week post-inauguration has held some of it. But I wondered how that compared with the same period one year ago. So I looked it up . It's only the smallest of slices to examine, but I think no matter how you examine it, there's not really any case for saying Couric's ratings have greatly improved.
What it seems to indicate is that things are up year over year for NBC and CBS. But in terms of the 25-54 demographic that news shows ads are sold based on, it's up at NBC 5X what it is at CBS. CBS went up a tenth of a ratings point year over year while NBC was up half a ratings point (.5) among 25-54 year olds.
It's true that CBS' numbers have improved a lot more if you only compare it to say, a week this past October. But all broadcast news was experiencing the same trend, so by that metric recently everyone's ratings have greatly improved! The week of January 26, 2009 was better than the week of say, October 13, 2008 for all three broadcasters. NBC improved most of all from that period as well.
CBS improved from the week in October to the week in January a little more than ABC did, but not enough to move the needle any versus last January. CBS is still last, across the board, and pretty much as far away from ABC as it was a year ago. And it's even further away from NBC than it was a year ago.
We'll have to monitor whether convincing the media that ratings have greatly improved actually winds up greatly improving the ratings, but I'd bet against it.
It looks pretty flat at ABC and CBS, while NBC is up more demonstrably. Perhaps we've completely ushered in for all things, whether it be stock market returns or television ratings the new era where "it didn't go down much/any/or even went up the tiniest of slivers!" gets re-spun as "greatly improved."
update: Bill notes that the trend for evening news is ALWAYS better when standard time is in effect than Daylight Saving Time. But this impacts all three networks similarly and reverting back to standard time helps them all. Recent gains compared to last summer or early fall can be mostly chalked up to this for all of three networks. While this chart ends in July 2008, it clearly shows the boost all the broadcast evening news casts get during the standard time months vs. the daylight savings time months.
Here's the data table:
| week/network | Total viewers (Million) | 25-54 Viewers | 25-54 Rtg/Share |
| Week of Jan. 26, 2009 | |||
| NBC | 10.30 | 3.55 | 2.9/10 |
| ABC | 9.34 | 2.92 | 2.4/8 |
| CBS | 7.72 | 2.54 | 2.0/7 |
| Week of Jan. 28, 2008 | |||
| NBC | 9.70 | 2.93 | 2.4/9 |
| ABC | 9.37 | 2.90 | 2.4/8 |
| CBS | 7.19 | 2.36 | 1.9/7 |
| Difference '08 to '09 | |||
| NBC | 0.60 | 0.62 | .5/1 |
| ABC | -0.03 | 0.02 | 0/0 |
| CBS | 0.53 | 0.18 | .1/0 |
| Week of October 13, 2008 | |||
| NBC | 7.83 | 2.48 | 2.0/8 |
| ABC | 7.16 | 2.52 | 2.0/8 |
| CBS | 5.89 | 1.79 | 1.4/6 |
| Difference 10/13/08 - 1/26/09 | |||
| NBC | 2.47 | 1.07 | .9/2 |
| ABC | 2.18 | 0.40 | .4/0 |
| CBS | 1.83 | 0.75 | .6/1 |
My guess would be that CBS is trying to hype Couric up get more people to tune in. Rumor has it that she was to be canned shortly after the elections. Now they are possibly looking for reasons to keep her around a little longer.
I read in the comments here from someone or other that they are looking to take her off the new desk but to keep her on in a different capacity. The hype is more likely to sell any new format they put her in to the advertisers rather than try to get new people to tune in. (Most people don’t read press releases outside of their own industry.)
I see no chance that CBS would keep Couric and boot her off the news desk.
Well after her recent forays into primetime, I doubt it, too.
Don’t forget the daylight savings time ending benefit for early evening shows. That Oct week above was still during DST.
Maybe they were talking of her Q numbers.
good point, but was the case most of March through October for all three networks. But there are a lot of stories about Couric’s ratings being greatly improved and no stories about Brian Williams. Given NBC doesn’t have much to shine the spotlight on, it’s almost surprising.
The Couric stories are in print, on the Internet and on TV as well. It’s not just press releases. It’s Washintgon Post, Huffingtong Post and CNN saying it, too.
Oh no question somebody is blowing the PR horn for her. But any increase since Oct is very DST based.
I updated the post, but honestly don’t see the DST thing as highly relevant when you bring the other networks into the comparison since they all benefit.
But I agree to the degree CBS can convince the media that Couric’s ratings are greatly improved versus summer and early fall (which seems to be a very high degree!) that daylight vs. standard time probably accounts for nearly all of the increases.
And it was me that Julia remembers bringing up this Tim Goodman column about CBS potentially exploring other uses for Couric. It is not as crazy as it might initially seem. I think CBS makes a lot more money with her on the Early Show and doing primetime interviews like Barbara Walters while putting someone else on the Evening News.
^After her not so rousing success in primetime, could they still be considering that?
When Couric first came to CBS she said something like that more than the money she was very excited about not having to wake up at 4am anymore. She may be getting paid a lot, but even if she winds up only doing 200 newscasts a year it’s only $75,000 per newscast. Whatever total production per episode costs are, even in last place, it’s not like CBS isn’t making any money on the evening news anyway.
From Couric’s perspective I wouldn’t see the early show happening unless her contract allows for such manuevering. Otherwise, without her getting a nice raise (a possibility, but seemingly less of one in this market) what’s in it for her?
I think her “not so rousing success in primetime” was more of a case that it was her nightly news show, not the fact that it was her, in primetime. If she’s given primetime interviews like what she did with Palen, then I think they could get some decent ratings off her, assuming the interviewee would be somewhat newsworthy.
Jared, her Grammy special last Wednesday didn’t exactly light it up either.
I agree that in any repurposing of Couric, her interest is the #1 factor, that argues against an Early Show move, but a Barbara Walters type 60 Minutes+primetime interview gig may well be to her liking. My point about the Evening News is that CBS could put one if its veteran news casters in the chair and likely not change the ratings much, if at all.
That’s the thing. Even with the much talked about Palin interview, did she get much of a ratings bump then?
I could see the occasional prime-time interview show being to her liking, but based on CBS’ ratings in prime-time I don’t see it needing to enter the fray with a 20/20, Dateline, or Primetime: What Would You do? type show that airs regularly (edit: other than of course, 60 Minutes!).
Unless it went with something more regularly scheduled, I don’t see why it would pull her off the news desk.
I’m sure there have been fill ins for her sometime in the past couple of years. Have they all gotten the same sort of ratings? Because if so, Bill’s point that anyone could take her place and get the same ratings is probably true. And they would likely not cost as much.
Julia, if they fire her, they pay the remainder of her contract. If she can’t be convinced to do the Early Show, and they’re not going to give her a regular prime-time gig, and they’re not going to fire her, why bump her off the news desk?
I doubt she can be convinced without paying her even more to do the Early Show, but I don’t have strong feelings about that. I do have stronger feelings that CBS right now doesn’t need to give her something that’s regularly run in prime-time. Even if it gave her something to do in prime-time once a month, it doesn’t make sense to me to can her from the news desk.
Put her on Saturday night.