Thirty-five years ago, Barbara Walters left her job on the Today Show at NBC to become co-anchor with Harry Reasoner on ABC's nightly news half hour. ABC had offered her the then unheard of salary of a million dollars a year to take the anchoring job. NBC had the right to match the offer, and keep Ms. Walters, but passed.
A few years later, after Barbara proved her value, I asked Dick Fisher, an NBC News Vice President, why they had let her go. He told me that NBC had researched her Q Scores, and found that considerably more people disliked her than liked her. But, he added, that NBC had now discovered that although being liked was good, being disliked was just as good. (Think Howard Cosell.) The on-camera people you don't want to hire are the ones that the audience doesn't care about one way or the other.
Whatever NBC discovered then, they've forgotten about now. Bill Carter, in Monday's New York Times, recounts the struggle between NBC and ABC for the rights to Katie Couric's services when she launches her own daytime talk hour next year. According to Carter, the Couric team "believed the network [NBC] had made a strong effort to woo her, including use of an elaborate PowerPoint presentation of the virtues of its syndication proposal and a video urging Ms. Couric to 'come home to NBC,' the effort foundered." Carter went on to write that "Ms. Couric, in one of the world's worse kept secrets, is said to announce on Monday that she will sign with ABC..."
Why did NBC not succeed in its efforts? Again, quoting Mr. Carter, "NBC, meanwhile, was taking its own steps to distance itself from any suggestion that it had lost out on Ms. Couric." They said they'd never made an offer to Katie, which her side acknowledged, and "emphasized privately that their internal research showed her to be too unpopular." For unpopular, read her Q Scores were not so good. "Harry Schafer, the Executive Vice President of Q Scores, which monitors the popularity of celebrities, said Ms. Couric's score had declined since she began on the CBS [network] five years ago..."
The Q Scores struck NBC again. Once more, the network lost the most important female TV journalist of her generation because Q research indicated her unpopularity -- thirty-five years ago, Dick Fisher told me that NBC would never make that mistake again, and maybe NBC's statements about Q Scores are just sour grapes, but there's no way I can stop myself from thinking that some networks never learn.
Has either Walters or Couric ever dug on her own and produced any real major story?
The answer to that is no. Like Walters, Couric is basically a celebrity interviewer and news reader, not a real journalist. Indeed, to cal either of them journalists is a grievous insult to a profession informed by much more intelligent, resourceful, accomplished and significant women than either of those two. Christiane Amanpour, for example.
I also happen to feel the same way about male anchors, too. For example, has Tom Brokaw ever dug for an broken any major story during his career? No. Again, he is just a news reader who bigfoots other people's work in a manner similar to Couric.
In fact, Rachel Maddow, with her nightly trenchant analyses of the news has done far more for journalism than Couric could ever dream of even though Maddow herself really has no experience as a straight news reporter, something that betrays just how shallow Couric's credibility is.
Her Prime Time Interviews on will be very Barbara-esque.
What baffles me is Comcast/NBC/MSNBC/CNBC/WEATHERCHANNEL/ON DEMAND had so many more opportunities to amortize KC's cost and build her value than anyone else.
Schonfeld is right about KC.
Time will tell whether Comcast has a vision (they just fired Dick Ebersole) or is just listening to the bean counters.
But still, depending on how one defines the nebulous word "important," a persuasive case could be made for other female TV reporters in Couric's age bracket. Christine Amanpour, Amy Goodman, Diane Sawyer come immediately to mind.
If you have ever been a soap fan BOYCOTT all of ABC’s replacement shows and tell everyone you know to do the same. Support all THREE ABC soaps to the bitter end!
They are the one who is turning off the money spigot for the soaps.
The soaps are dying because the younger demographics never got in the habit of watching them.
I'm surprised the nets have held on to them as long as they have.
I do not agree that the blame is that the younger generation isnt watching. They are its just not the standard way that the Neilson rates can be accounted for. The younger viewers are using there DVR's and computers to watch. The Neilson ratings need to be updated to included all these methods and there needs to be a wider cast set to include more then 29,000 people. This might have worked 30-40 years ago but population has ski rocketed and this sample of people is NOT the majority. I am consider in the demograph of 18-49 but I dont have a Neilson box and or anyone of my peers and guess what I watch Soap Opera's.
Mind you, they aren't as cretinous as the reality shows. Or are they?