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Katie gets a new boss at CBS News
Quick! Fire the producer, change the set!
Such are the traditional first steps taken when news ratings collapse. And Katie Couric’s performance for “The CBS Evening News” in the February sweeps sagged pretty good.
Today CBS News will announce that executive producer Rome Hartman is fired and former CNN and MSNBC president (and former ABC News producer) Rick Kaplan has taken over.
No word on the redesigned set, but change is bound to come. Those too-comfy interview chairs, the ones that allow Couric to loll back into her “Today” show style, have got to go.
The CBS newscast has been a distant third — currently behind ABC and NBC — for years, dating back to Dan Rather’s tumultuous reign. But Bob Schieffer, who temporarily took over as anchor after Rather’s departure, had better ratings than The First Female Anchor of a Nightly Network Newscast.
In the recently completed February sweeps, Couric’s newscast sank lower than her first rating period last November — when a good deal of curiosity lingered from her Sept. 5 debut.
At first, the broadcast attempted to distinguish itself with longer news features, face-to-face interviews conducted by Couric and a commentary segment dubbed “Free Speech” that presented regular and famous Americans (such as Rush Limbaugh) popping off on various topics. The latter feature bombed and was dropped after a couple of months.
Network newscasts that try to reinvent the wheel rarely succeed, and CBS appears poised to return to a more traditional broadcast that will feature Couric as a more traditional anchor — instead of an adaptation of the perky morning persona for which she is so well-known.
Cavemen vs. gecko
Wouldn’t we really rather have a gecko?
In case you haven’t heard, ABC is crafting a pilot for a comedy series that will star the sad-sack cavemen from the Geico commercials. You know, the guys who feel unappreciated by modern society.
The show will feature three modern-day Neanderthals trying to live normal lives in Atlanta.
The wisecracking Cockney lizard is so much funnier, but maybe he wasn’t available this pilot season.
The last time a TV series was based on a commercial was when Quiznos spun “Baby Bob,” the grown-up talking baby from the sandwich ads. “Baby Bob” aired on CBS for a few weeks in 2002 and then, happily, faded away.
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By austinights
March 8, 2007 1:15 PM | Link to this
Wouldn't someone at Geico stop to think....hey, caveman pilot with a Gecko who complains that back in his ancestral days he was a mighty dinosaur and has now been reduced to being a meal for a snake or some other roadkill? I think it would add some jocularity to a neanderthal in present day scenario. With all the other crap out there soon we'll see Kevin Federline starring in a fast food pilot show.