'CBS Evening News' Sinks To Record Lows, 'World News' Only Show To Grow In Network Ratings

With the drumbeat of rumors that she is heading for the door, Katie Couric was likely looking for better ratings news than what she got Tuesday. Instead, the ratings for the first quarter of 2011 showed that the "CBS Evening News" drew its lowest viewing figures in at least 19 years. Not only that, but CBS' ratings could be the lowest ever, since Nielsen records only go back to 1992.

Over at ABC, the news was rather more cheerful. "World News With Diane Sawyer" was the only one of the three broadcast news shows to gain viewers from a year ago. In fact, "World News" saw its highest ratings in three years, along with its highest demo ratings in two years.

As usual, though, NBC News came out on top. Its ratings fell from 2010, though that could be because they were artificially inflated thanks to the Olympics.

The full ratings:

"NBC Nightly News": 9.81 million total viewers; 2.94 million A25-54
"ABC World News": 8.65 million total viewers; 2.43 million A25-54
"CBS Evening News": 6.43 million total viewers; 1.98 million A25-54

Comments

[zest]

08:45 AM on 03/31/2011

I'm a news junkie and I never watch these broadcasts.

[tploomis]

02:54 AM on 03/31/2011

Diane Sawyer is almost unwatchable for me. She scrunches up her face when she is interviewing people, looking puzzled. I've seen that face on students that don't get what the professor is saying. Her impression of not understanding what is being said is amplified by her questions that imply that the interviewee's straightforward answers are somehow deeply puzzling. Then she reports the news with a lot of subjective nonverbal reactions to the content. That is distracting to me. I would rather develop my own reactions, rather than have them telegraphed to me by the news anchor.

[tploomis]

02:48 AM on 03/31/2011

Katie Couric has been a disappointment as a news anchor. She doesn't use any of her strengths, which are plentiful when she is interviewing others. She reads the news with a deadpan face, suggesting not much else other than being depressed. When she interviews, she shows tremendous interest, she asks questions that are well ahead of the interviewee, and she has a warm, friendly demeanor that lulls interviewees into thinking she is on their side (ala Palin). She should go back to doing special reports.

[Talossa]

12:51 AM on 03/31/2011

There was a commentator (I think he was British) on NPR the other day who made the startlingly obvious point that he didn't like watching news in the United States because (I'm paraphrasing), "on American television, every single debate about any issue anywhere in the world instantly becomes a debate about American politics."

[john456]

08:26 PM on 03/30/2011

BBC offers true international news from a Western prespective. Our media is for profit so it is cautious not to offed anyone and treds lightly. That is why when Walter Cronkite editorialized against the Viet Nam War it was unusual. Also the Republican Party has run off the rails but the main commercial media still does not expose the inane remarks and positions they take. I believe McConnell's statement that defeating Obama is his number one priority borders on impeachable. (His first duty is to do his best to ensure the welfare of the United States regardless of any other individual.)

[gypsynomad]

07:10 PM on 03/30/2011

Katie was the one exposed Palin for what a dingb_at Sarah really is.

[Joseph Coon]

07:27 PM on 03/30/2011

I guess she shouldn't have done that. Selective editing is never good when more people say they are conservative than liberal. Will it be long before was can sing "Another One Bites The Dust"?

[gypsynomad]

08:26 PM on 03/30/2011

This is the standard practice of all reports since the inception of television. The interview has to fit the time assigned for it. It is well know the remblings of Ms. Palin , no one has time for her incessant chatter..

[Joseph Coon]

10:23 PM on 03/30/2011

It is not a standard (or at least should be) to slant your interview against once party and not the next. Did she go after Biden for not knowing the FDR was not the president at the start of the Great Depression and FDR did not go on TELEVISION? (Or was she just to dumb to know it)

[ThreeCrows]

05:03 PM on 03/30/2011

You have to wonder where did it go wrong for Katie Couric? She was hailed as the second coming when she left NBC to anchor CBS Evening News and they trotted out to tour the country to build up her audience before she sat down officially and after the initial honeymoon phase, the numbers have been down for this $14 million dollar/yr. teleprompter reader. I watched her briefly and it was tough watching her as she tried to reinvent the news with her one on one stuff that just dragged the show down. All of the news network needs to stop overproducing their segments by trying to tell a story. Just get to the point and give us the news. We don't need low angle shots are music beds to move a story along and to elicit an emotion. After commercials, you have 22 minutes of news reading. Get to it. As for Katie, reading some of these posts seems to indicate you have lost many viewers and perhaps it may be of your pointed views that borders on biasness. Maybe you are more suited to being on Fox?

[Taj Snead]

04:28 PM on 03/30/2011

Network news is being overshadowed by the internet. why wait to 6 oclock when I can get everything online. I like all three anchors and i flip back and forth all the time. But when people would rather her pundits and opinions that match there own its hard.

Not to mention what happen to Dan Rather that was a Travesty. I've been watching alot of Current TV cause BBC and Aljezzera

[whowhatwhywherewhen]

12:17 PM on 03/30/2011

That's a shame. Couric is so much better than Sawyer.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

11:00 AM on 03/30/2011

Has anyone considered the idea that the reason CBS News is the lowest in the ratings is because of their legacy in broadcast news? In other words, it's in their culture to actually be a news organization (they've supported 60 Minutes all these years, after all) and not another spin-off of their entertainment division. I find Couric's treatment of the news engaging without trying to be Entertainment Tonight. And the feature stories she does air (at the end of the show) are all based in real issues the country is facing. Her "Jobless in America" and "Hunger in America" series were great, and timely.

[SCboy]

10:15 AM on 03/30/2011

I've never really cared for Katie Couric or much of anything she has done. The one exception, though, that we should all thank her for were the Sarah Palin interviews. The way she let Palin dig the hole, jump in, and pull it in on her head was pretty close to masterful.

[El Chingaso]

11:14 AM on 03/30/2011

Yeah, that Palin interview with Couric...was classic. I mean, I was shocked. Thank you, Ms. Katie, for exposing the truth, no matter how painful it was to watch. That's worth a few million $$$ to have saved America from McCain/Palin. CBS can just keep cutting the checks...

Afterwards, McCain became an increasingly disgruntled old cuss, trying to win the presidency. And "O" beat him.

[craftycrow]

09:59 AM on 03/30/2011

Katie Couric is, IMO, very unlikeable. I can't really take her seriously...I always think of her as a quirky morning host. Diane Sawyer is my idol, though. She's incredible and has so much class.

[raker]

01:30 PM on 03/30/2011

If either one of them presented the news I'd watch. CBS's show is like a magazine at a supermarket checkout. It ain't the news. ABC is a Republican propaganda machine. No thank you. NBC is only slightly better than the other two, in the way having a fever of 101 is slightly better than having a fever of 102.

TV news is worse than irrelevant, it is harmful. Don't watch.

[seawillow]

09:44 AM on 03/30/2011

"Well, can you tell us how you FELT when (fill in blank).................."

[El Chingaso]

09:23 AM on 03/30/2011

I miss Uncle Walter. That was the golden age.

[deluk]

07:00 AM on 03/30/2011

....more royal wedding coverage, that'll do the trick.

[Behind the Tweed Curtain]

04:23 PM on 03/30/2011

Could well be a British word, it's just that excellent. I learned it from a very British Canadian man of letters - Robertson Davies.