Katie Couric Ratings Rise: Best Week Since February 2007

NEW YORK — After two years of relentlessly bad ratings news, Katie Couric finally has something she can smile about.

The "CBS Evening News" anchor remains in third place behind NBC and ABC. But the average of 7.4 million people who watched her newscast last week was better than any than any week since February 2007, five months after she moved over from NBC's "Today" show.

That makes four straight weeks where her audience was bigger than at the same point last year, according to Nielsen Media Research.

It suggests that two years after the initial bad reaction viewers had to her move from "Today," some people are giving her a second chance.

The improvement could be a result of the positive feedback Couric received for her interview of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the presidential campaign. Palin fumbled on a question about what publications she read regularly, and the interview was a launching point for one of Tina Fey's "Saturday Night Live" spoofs.

"Basically, she remade her reputation as a result of the Palin interview," said Andrew Tyndall, a consultant who studies the content of nightly newscasts.

Since January, the "CBS Evening News" has averaged 6.1 million viewers, Neilsen said. People who have tuned in recently can see that the program is much improved, said Paul Friedman, senior vice president of CBS News.

"Let's not get too excited until we see a longer run" of improved ratings, Friedman said. "It is certainly better than the alternative."

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Bad weather may have helped Couric, too; perhaps more of the older people that is part of CBS' typical audience stayed home. Tyndall also said that last week, without much promotion, the CBS newscast ran investigative reports on three nights that stretched almost to the length of a "60 Minutes" piece.

NBC's "Nightly News" averaged 10.1 million viewers last week (6.6 rating, 12 share), to ABC's "World News" average of 9.2 million (6.1, 11). That's been another quiet trend of the past month, when the newscasts have spent considerable time on bad economic news: Brian Williams of NBC has opened a significant margin over ABC's Charles Gibson. Couric's newscast had a 4.9 rating and 9 share.

CBS had another dominant week in prime time, and has now become the only one of the top four networks to increase its audience over last year. Of the 44 different half-hours in prime-time last week, CBS was the most popular network for 32 of them, or 73 percent, Nielsen said.

Except for Sunday's National Football League game between Carolina Panthers and the New York Giants on NBC and its pre-game show, CBS had the 11 most popular programs in prime-time television, topped by the 19.9 million people who watched "NCIS."

CBS averaged 11.2 million viewers for the week (7.0 rating, 12 share). NBC had 7.5 million (4.7, 8), Fox 6.1 million (3.8, 6), ABC 5.1 million (3.2, 5), My Network TV 1.8 million (1.1, 2), the CW 1.5 million (1.0, 2) and ION Television 800,000 (0.5, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 4 million viewers (1.9 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura 530,000 (0.3, 0) and Azteca 130,000 (0.1, 0).

A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Dec. 15-21, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "NCIS," CBS, 19.94 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 19.31 million; Sunday Night Football: Carolina Panthers at New York Giants," NBC, 18.86 million; "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 17.92 million; "Criminal Minds," CBS, 15.16 million; "CSI: Miami," CBS, 14.56 millon; "Without a Trace," CBS, 14.48 million; "CSI: NY," CBS, 13.38 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 13.13 million."CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 12.68 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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On the Net:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com

Comments

[MyGuyO]

Katie,
This is great news, although am watching cable news at your time slot.
Love your new look!
You go girl.

[mergina]

Katie deserves to have her ratings rise.

[BobsNotWorking]

It has nothing to do with the Palin interviews. CBS News is now, and has long been, a bastion of excellent news journalism. The fact that half the nation bought into the bulls*it being spewed by the radical right for three decades now (all starting when Cronkite said the Vietnam war was un-winnable) has never diminished the quality of their work. Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation and Couric on the evening news stand head and shoulders above the others when it comes to traditional journalism that does not vitiate the truth for the sake of "balance".

[Jasel]

Interesting. Personally I think there were a lot of people who wanted to see Couric fail when she went to CBS Evening News. There were just too many people dogging her before she even started. While she doesn't particularly stand out as spectacular to me I think the criticisms due to low ratings were unfarily placed on her.

I don't care much for her but I really do hope her ratings continue to rise.

[raymondjiii]

Mmmmmmm Katie.....I'd love to get a bite of that!

[tdh]

I like her news show the best --- too much testosterone in the others, too much preening, gut wrenchingly dramatic bs - cbs news is saner, somehow.

[magnetplanner]

CBS did not pay $15 million per year for 3rd place. This move has been a loser from day one.

[EricLightborn]

Try not to be too hard on Katie, geez.

Palin gave her a boost but maybe she is just putting in some good broadcast journalism. Is every ratings jump a sign of impending doom or glory? Maybe I'm just outta the loop.

[swo68]

It won't last. She's out of her element.

[alifilee]

she should have been terminated the first month; the woman is not smart, she belongs on the TODAY Show, how they kept her this long and paying her 15M a year is beyond me; but it is sure enough paying for all her face lifts. i miss bob schieffer, how could they replace him with her, there is no comparison.
he is so great, one of my favorites and he knows what he is talking about.

[timmmahhhh]

I disagree with you. Katie is exceptionally intelligent. She is very witty, a strong sign of intelligence. The way she comes back at Letterman with one liners of her own shows she can out-Letterman Letterman if she wants to. Her interview with Palin showed all the ways she is a far better interviewer than Gibson. Schieffer would had been a good choice too but at his age I would imagine he would be replaced much sooner than Williams and Gibson, putting CBS at a disadvantage in the long term. She provides a better chance at providing comparable competitive consistency.

Plus CBS understands that sometimes changes take time to be accepted. Keep in mind that Williams and Gibson have the advantages of having been with their networks for very many years and even substituting for the main anchors before eventually taking over. Couric went straight from Today to the top job at a different network. Given that disadvantage / challenge I feel she has done exceptionally well.

[bmwracer]

Must be the hair.

[HuffpostBlogger]

Katie is hot!

[djgonebad]

I found a new appreciation for her during the election; especially CBS's post debate Pod-cast. Plus, she did us a great favor by exposing Bible Spice for being ________.

[PartTimeHero]

Good for Couric; she deserves it for weathering through a fair amount of undeserved criticism while under a microscope. Good to CBS News for sticking with her, it will pay off.

Although I can't praise CBS that loudly; we will NEVER forget what you did to the great Dan Rather.

[city]

Actually she looks like a grown woman now, not a teeny bopper and it seems to be working for her.