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CBS Evening News: The Reality Show?
Messing with television’s evening news format is like fiddling with the morning news: dangerous and probably doomed.
Remember CBS’s 1987 experiment, “The Morning Program,” a lame talk show hosted by Mariette Hartley that was supposed to knock holes in “Today” and “Good Morning America?” You don’t? I’m not surprised. Bad idea … didn’t last.
CBS News is still mulling what to do with its third-place evening news in the wake of Dan Rather’s spring departure. Network chief Leslie Moonves said in March that a multianchor format might be considered, along with other “out-of-the-box” possibilities.
The last time CBS News experimented with the evening news was when Connie Chung was dubbed Rather’s co-anchor in 1994. A year later, the solo anchor format came back.
Nevertheless, CBS seems determined to break the solo mold. Quietly, Moonves and CBS News president Andrew Heyward have been tinkering with possibilities. One version has weekend anchor/White House correspondent John Roberts delivering the day’s headlines and then opening up the half-hour to “debriefings” with reporters and some longer, feature-style reports.
Here’s my suggestion: Turn the once-hallowed “CBS Evening News” into a reality show, a contest with different formats and anchors competing and viewers voting the baddies off until a winner is crowned.
What do you think? I think I’ve got something here … I’m calling CBS now!
This week in the New York Observer, we learn that CBS News conducted a summer-long workshop with college interns to determine what younger viewers want in an evening newscast.
This is an attempt, of course, to get viewers younger than 55, but that’s probably a losing proposition since young people check Internet news several times a day and watch 24-cable news when the need strikes. They are not willing keep a 5:30 appointment.
One thing that I find fascinating — and good — about the interns’ suggestions is that most of them wanted more international news. They, thank heavens, are interested in what’s going on outside the U.S. as well as inside.
The interns also disapproved of CBS’s infatuation with debriefings. They thought there was too much emphasis on reporters, not enough on the news.
See? Young people are smart.
Not surprisingly the interns also thought it would be nice to have an anchor younger than, say, sixtysomething. And that’s likely to happen. Bob Schieffer won’t be at the helm much longer. They thought weather and sports would be a nice addition, but CBS execs nixed that notion.
The rumor mill says CBS will try something different in September — probably without fanfare but with thinly disguised desperation.
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