Simon Defeats Katie

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | January 29, 2009 | +

Why don’t more people watch the evening news anymore? One commonly blamed culprit is schedules. People are busy at 6:30! Gotta work late! Soccer practice! Put the news on later, when people are home, the thinking goes, and they’ll have time to tune in.

Except that then, they want to watch American Idol. Last night, CBS experimented with putting the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric at 8 p.m. E.T. TV Decoder reports that it not only got crushed (unsurprisingly) by American Idol, but at 6.5 million viewers, it drew less than its average audience at 6:30. But it did beat Knight Rider and a rerun of Lost.

New plan for restoring ratings of network news: get everyone to lose their jobs, eliminate soccer practice, and figure out how to take American Idol off the air.

Update: Coincidentally, CBS just sent the above picture of Couric bowling with Lil’ Wayne on her primetime Grammy special next Wednesday. Maybe that’ll do better.

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beerbaron

This just confirms that the only people who watch network news eat dinner at 4:30 and go to bed after Jeopardy.
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Do you think she’ll ask Weezy what newspapers and magazines he reads?
erichvandussen

I don’t know: is it fair to read the failure of Katie’s one-shot prime-time newscast as an affirmation of anything? It wasn’t well promoted (your blog notwithstanding); it was scheduled for just the one night without any unique promotable content that might encourage viewers to seek it out; it was up against American Idol and other traditional prime-time entertainments; and perhaps most importantly it was on CBS, typically the least popular of the three newscasts anyway.
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If all three networks were to agree to air their 6:30 shows in the 8 p.m. slot for one week, we might get a better sense of exactly how much viewers care about old-fashioned newscasts in a 21st-century media landscape. All this event proves is that viewers prefer dessert to dinner, which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.
James Poniewozik

@erich: It is a bit of a cheap shot, yes. But (1) CBS didn’t schedule the one-off just for yuks, so even if they have no primetime news plans, they must see some value in the comparison. (Maybe to test the waters for future news specials? I dunno.) (2) While CBS is the least-watched newscast, comparing the stunt with *its own regular perofrmance* is at least somewhat apples-to-apples. And (3) more important, if there is ever a primetime newscast, it will not be done by three networks acting in concert; much more likely it will be one network–probably the third place one–rolling the dice alone, so it will have to compete against entertainment offerings. (Or Jay Leno.)
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You are absolutely right, though, that this does not prove a regularly scheduled 8 p..m. newscast would do the same. The flip side is that it might well do worse.
oizydoizy

“get everyone to lose their jobs”

Yeah, like that’ll ever happen. Of course, Couric & co. might lose their jobs before we do, at which point we’ll watch Paula Abdul for the news.