CBS Evening News Ratings Hit New Low

Last week, the CBS Evening News marked a new low in the ratings, recording just 5.39 million total viewers for the previous week.

This week, the Katie Couric-led broadcast sunk even lower than that, reaching a new new low of 5.34 million total viewers for last week.

"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" won the week and both ABC and NBC tied in the desirable Adults 25-54 demographic.

EVENING NEWS (Week of April 21, 2008)

Network	Total Viewers	Adults 25-54	Households
NBC	8.01	1.9/8; 2,330,000	5.5/12
ABC	7,790,000	1.9/8; 2,330,000	5.4/12
CBS	5,340,000	1.3/5; 1,580,000	3.7/8

Source: Nielsen, NTI & NSI

Comments

[KarateKid]

Couric was a bad idea to begin with. Too bad Judy Woodruff and Leslie Stahl didn't sit down with Katie and give her some lessons on how to do it properly.

[gakabani]

CBS News is simply going down because there is no one at the wheel.
Whwre si Dan Rather by the way? Is his lawsuit still on?

[mellene]

I'd rather watch her than that hateful Charlie Gibson. I was so shocked by his interrogation tactics at the Obama/Clinton debate that I'll be hard-pressed to ever tune in again to that newscast. I see GMA is trying to improve his image with today's guest appearance, but they'll have to do much more especially with George S. at his side each evening. They've both become hateful.

[Strayker]

Here's a crazy idea Katie Couric and CBS---Start telling us the truth about what's really going on--beginning with the Iraq war and the corrupt Bush administration. Who knows...ratings might even go up!

Thank God for K.O. and Rachael Maddow

[wm1066]

I agree, but I have had to stop listening to Rachael, she has started to use these long run on questions that drive me nuts. They go something like this; ' If you think your safe in your home, if you think your home is your castle, if you think your door will keep out the wolf, if you think blah blah, if you think....if you think...' it drives me nuts and I can't hit that mute button quick enough.
Rachael if your listening, Stop It!

[TurgidCaterwauling]

Three network news broadcasts based on viewership? Let's see, someone has to be first, and someone last. Golly, how do we get more people to watch 'our news,' which, if you think about it,
should be the same news the other guys are presenting. Oh, let's dress it up, change the set, put a skirt on it, have a contest. In other words, let's make it entertaining.

It would be nice to see a broadcast that spends more than thirty seconds on a story, one that delivers real context and perspective. Instead, we get reporters standing knee deep in floods and fluff pieces that advertise 60 Minutes, Dateline or 20/20.

On any of the newscasts, the news up to the first commercial is about all that's relevant. After that it's fluff. Do I care if Katie, Brian, and Charlie are gone tomorrow? Not in the least.

[RavenHawk23]

I remember that I had watched Couric on her first night as Anchor. At the end of the broadcast, I remember, that she announced there would be a contest to name the CBS nightly news (or something goofy like that). At that moment (not unlike a Vegas card dealer), I clapped my hands, & said "I am out of here", & I have never looked back.

Thank God for Keith Olbermann.

[widollar]

People like Katie reading teleprompters and getting paid 17 million dollars a year to do that is why America has lost all sense of balance! She tries to look serious, and that old perky smirk is all that we see, and its boring! She needs to host a game show!

[SugarMan]

They Should Have Kept DAN RATHER!!!!

[torrrep]

Yes because a proven liar giving the news is much more entertaining.

[vandegrasse]

Takes one to know one, conservative bastard!

[madkey]

Hillary Clinton is no better but they support her lies.

[madkey]

Thats what happens when they support liars just like they support Hillary Clinton.

[madkey]

What do they expect from Hillary Clinton to tell the truth. She lied to so whats the difference. They supported her. Thats what they get.

[deadbolt]

To use the word news when discussing any of the big 3 networks is oxymoronic. Propaganda would be a more accurate discription.

[LeeScho]

I write this after reading all of the 16 comments thus posted, 15 of them negative about Katie Couric. Yet, not one gave a single specific or substantive criticism of Katie versus Brian Williams or Charles Gibson. Those two guys come nowhere near Jennings or Brokaw or Rather or Bernard Shaw, let alone the gold standard of Cronkite, David and Chet, etc. Williams and Gibson are smug, wordy, self-inflated, and preface every story as if it were of increased importance over the lead. What do they cover that Katie does not? What angle or insight do they bring that she does not?

Katie has hit the glass ceiling. America is not ready for a competent female anchor.

By the way, is it of no import that in a nation of 200+ million viewers, the three network nightly news programs only draw 21 million combined? Did Katie do that, too?

[rascalov]

Nah, she was too busy showing off her legs to the camera. She really knows how to move up ... show some skin. That's all she has.

[JamesA1102]

The problem is Coric is not a competent female anchor. She's a joke. A pop personality instead of a real journalist. I don't there would be any of these critisizms or problems if it were the 'CBS Evening News with Christine Amanpour'.

[LeeScho]

And still, again, not a single specific, substantive criticism of Couric. Amanpour is a journeywoman journalist and would probably hate a desk job. Couric never pretended to be that, as have not Williams and Gibson. These guys, like Couric, are corporate desk jockeys.

[iPolitics]

If your behind ABC Faux News II you're in trouble.

[drzoon]

Couric was an entertainment stunt. CBS canceled the news a long long time ago.

who cares what CBS does anymore in news? It used to be the crown jewel.. now
its not even a good knock-off braclet

[ann1]

We really need to support Katie and turn off Charlie. I thought a protest was still going on against ABC?

[vandegrasse]

Support Katie. What is she some sort of Miss America. Kick her ass out. In fact, turn off the TV altogether and make yourself a better person.

[reunionpi]

Katie Couric Tax Warrant

www.webofdeception.com

[cpscscs]

After many, many years of being a faithful viewer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and then Dan Rather, I left it entirely after Katie Couric took over. However, Walter and Ed Murrow never would have hosted Saturday Night Live; and after the fiasco of the last debate, Charlie Gibson is not a newsman either. So I have come back to CBS News in spite of the current anchor.