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

[AmericCanuck]

Katie has always given my ratings a rise.

[TheNoBullExpress]

Katie Couric should have a statue made. Place it right near the one of Paul Revere

[AmandaBC]

You've got to give her credit for ex.posing Sarah Palin for what she really is: a bum.bling i.diot...
She might have actually been instrumental in 0bama's victory, as she made a lot of conservatives vote for the "lesser e.vil"...

[AmandaBC]

You've got to give her credit for exposing Sarah Palin for what she really is: a bumbling i.diot...
She might have actually been instrumental in Obama's victory, as she made a lot of conservatives vote for the "lesser evil"...

[truejustice444]

She would be perminately number 1 if she would dress like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coyote2012/2501296174/

[JoeGdr]

Kitty Couric.

[gaiasessions]

ms couric is a prepackaged media manipulated woman. i much prefer ms maddow. ms maddow does research. ms couric disses indigenous people.

i was permanently turned off by ms couric when i saw satellite footage of her in which she was captured speaking on a boat on columbus day. she may not have known the camera was rolling, but she certainly represented a slice of america that is uneducated of the way this country came to be.

there was a genocide on this continent of the indigenous people by the european people. ms couric seems to have no reference to this fact. i very much appreciate news people who know how to do research.

[taricaziz]

when she asked Palin what she reads, and hearing the answer , My respect for her went way up. She was on Letterman and showed professionalism, a good sense of humor; and nice legs.

[1sparrow]

i read it first on huffpo; KATIE'S NEW DO'. that did the trick. she turned the corner to absolute success. her low point was back in 2003 when she was snarky reading off shakira's accomplishments on a NBC concert series with matt laurer. to keep her cred she now MUST make every effort to keep the spotlight off sarah palin. i don't want sarah in the media anymore. katie- use your respected influence about this.

[sippewissett]

I'm glad that Palin did SOME good for us and for Katie since she surely helped sink the GOP, along with the Rabid Right. During that interview, Couric was diplomatic, calm and in no way engaged in "gotcha" interviewing. That Palin was unprepared for basic questions is Palin's problem, not a conspiracy of the left-wing media. Palin is coddled and excused byt the Right because of her right-wing social 'thinking', but she's a buffoon when not supported by RNC sound bytes. In interviews with 'friendly' sources since then, Palin has interpreted Couric's questions as confrontational, but a review of Couric's wording vs. Palin's interpretation of the questions (like what she reads) show two realities. Palin was not, is not and never will be presidential material. Thank you, Katie.

[sippewissett]

Forgot the link that goes right to the question of what Palin reads. All the TeamSarah bigots who think she is maligned need to listen to how Couric framed the question. That Palin couldn't answer on specifics and took the question as an afront to Alaskans was one of many smoke screens she used throughout the campaign to duck and weave when uncomfortable and unprepared. Listen carefully to Couric's question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y&NR=1 It doesn't require that one be a nuclear physicist to answer what one reads. The answer, "All", is ludicrous.­..and a side-stepping that translates as "I barely read anything that I'd want to mention on national television. Remember that I already said I heard about the surge on TV."

[ricchase]

I believe another thing that has helped Couric is the utterly distasteful way Gibson and Stephanopolus handled the debate with Obama. That was the last day I watched ABC news and switched to Couric. I am glad I did. All a newsperson has to do to gain the respect and confidence of the American public is shoot from the hip and speak the truth in a straight line. Network news has gone from an iconic state to a bought and paid for propaganda machine for powerful interests. And people are beginning, finally, to see right through it.

[texastrixie]

Couric did not ask difficult questions of Palin. She asked questions anyone should be able to answer, but they were designed to elicit information about the extent and depth of Palin's beliefs and values. Palin has no intellectual depth and Couric made that apparent.

Couric has dropped most of the "innovative" changes she & CBS sought to update evening news, and she has made an effort to project a calmer, less cheerleader-type personna. I like her new haircut and her new demeanor. One of the main detractions viewers cited when she first came on CBS was something to the effect that she was a morning person or essentially not serious enough for hard news.

At first Couric didn't understand the objection and sought to bring her early morning personna to evening news. Now however, she has changed, and while I at first refused to watch her, now I watch her almost exclusively.

She may never be #1 or even #2 in the ratings, but things may change. ABC at one time ranked #1, but I think Gibson's terrible performance at the presidential debate, and his less effective interview of Palin have worn the luster off of the evening news. NBC, because of MSNBC, and CNBC, uses a lot of desk interviews with its own staff on the evening news which I don'tlike.

Couric has proven the need for a female news anchor. There are just situations where a woman can ask questions that a man can't.

[nancytheragingliberal]

Palin would have been our next Pres., for sure. McCain was not a well man and she had her sites set on that job. VP was beneath ol' Sarah. She was a dangerous, uneducated person. She can't think, speak, reason, read, write, ruminate, ponder...W­ait~ Those were the words I said regarding w., and Americans voted him in two times. Why, Sarah has a good chance to become Pres.! Forty six % of the American people voted for the Palin-McCain ticket. Sure, let's have more repub. rule. It has worked so well, all of these years. Not. Katie did the world a favor with her interview , and exposed Palin as the phony lightweight she really is.

[sdp]

Fox ratings are small compared to the networks. O'Reilly typically gets less than 2 million viewers per night, as the article above mentions, Couric gets about 7 million, Gibson gets 9 million and Williams gets 10 million. FauxNews always hypes their ratings, but their dissemination of information doesn't match the facts.

[ricchase]

And still, with Fox pulling in a smaller audience, look at the noise they make. The coverage they get from their outrageous dialogue makes up for lack of viewership.

[manitoumackinac]

She saved us all from Palin.

[robbor]

katie's eyes are beginning to take on that slight pointiness that suggest she's entered that long road of plastic surgery.

oh, God, katie, don't go there!!