The revamped “CBS Evening News” received a rankings bump for its first broadcast after the exit of anchor Norah O’Donnell – however media business specialists anticipated the spike in eyeballs to be short-lived, calling the brand new anchor staff “stodgy.”
“No one turned into the “Evening News” to look at Norah as a result of she was not a winner. Folks have been curious and have been sampling the present,” a longtime TV producer informed The Submit, earlier than turning on anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson.
“They looked old and stodgy.”
Their debut Monday pulled in a mean of 5.2 million whole viewers — a 14% spike from what O’Donnell averaged final yr, in keeping with early rankings numbers obtained by The Submit.
Nonetheless, this system remained firmly entrenched in final place behind rivals ABC and NBC.
“John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois are the poor man’s David Muir and Lester Holt,” chimed in a second community insider, referring to the night information anchors at ABC and NBC, respectively.
The primary supply added: “They look like ‘The Odd Couple’ but the difference is the ‘Odd Couple’ had chemistry.”
Calling the debut “uninspiring,” one other community insider famous that it might be “clearer” by Friday if this system manages to retain viewers.
A CBS Information spokesperson declined to remark.
O’Donnell helmed the ratings-challenged present for 5 years earlier than being moved out as a part of a broad revamping of the nightly information format — which the Tiffany Community had pioneered below anchors Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
Throughout O’Donnell’s tenure within the anchor chair, the present plunged roughly 25% within the rankings, making Monday’s bump a welcomed change.
the “Evening News” program. Gail Schulman/CBS Information
Nonetheless retaining that bump — nonetheless small — is a tough feat in TV information. When CBS tapped Katie Couric as anchor of the “Evening News” anchor, the present noticed received a large rankings spike of 14 million for her debut on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006. By Friday of that week, her numbers cratered to eight million.
In fact, TV viewership habits have been more healthy then and the period of the massive night information community anchor was nonetheless flourishing. However with the rise of streaming and digital, the significance of the nightly newscast has shriveled.
The brand new format is the brainchild of CBS Information president Wendy McMahon, a former ABC native TV information exec, and “60 Minutes” government producer Invoice Owens, who was tapped to execute the imaginative and prescient.
A part of that imaginative and prescient is to deliver extra in-depth storytelling to the published, whereas additionally decreasing the overhead of the present with cheaper expertise.
Prior the debut of the “Evening News,” DuBois had anchored newscasts for the community’s native WCBS station in New York. Dickerson primarily served as a political correspondent for varied CBS packages and had had a couple of at-bats as host on the community’s morning present and “Face the Nation,” which didn’t pan out.
“People don’t care who the anchor is anymore. That star power is not as important,” stated a community supply. “This is a last-ditch hope by CBS to do good journalism and hope viewers stick. Their strategy could work.”
In its first two exhibits, this system ran segments on how the struggle in Gaza has helped draw new recruits to Hamas, an in-depth have a look at how one terminally sick affected person turned to a medical assist with the intention to die and a narrative on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement company’s preparation forward of its raids in New York Metropolis.
One former TV information government predicted that viewers can be turned off by heavy enterprise reporting in a 30-minute broadcast.
“I don’t think the audiences have the capacity to absorb a reporting-led show with lots of segments,” the supply stated.
One other TV insider stated the issues have been extra elementary, noting that there’s solely “one camera” for 2 anchors to have a look at, which seems “amateurish” and that the set is “too dark.”
“The show looks like local TV plussed up,” the insider concluded.
