CBS - COURIC'S NEWSCAST FALLS TO NEW LOW

While CBS News executives continue to point out that it took Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings a long time to climb to the top of the ratings, the latest Nielsen results show Katie Couric climbing in the wrong direction. In fact, her numbers fell to a record low as she averaged just 5.39 million viewers last week. It was not a good day for Couric Tuesday. Besides learning about her falling ratings, she also learned that the North Carolina debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which she had been tapped to moderate, had been called off. And, in apparent response to rumors that Couric was hoping to jump to CNN and replace Larry King if she left CBS, CNN announced that it had extended King's contract through 2010. Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams extended its lead over ABC World News With Charles Gibson by nearly 600,000 viewers. The NBC newscast drew 8.17 million viewers, while the ABC newscast drew 7.51 million. Some writers suggested that the gap -- the two programs had been running neck-and-neck for more than a year -- might have been the result of viewer anger over ABC's handling of last week's Democratic presidential debate. message writers on blogs had posted such comments as: "We should all just erase George [Stephanopoulos] and Charlie [Gibson] and not just for a day but at least through the election;" "There's now no point in watching ABC news. Brian Williams, here I come!;" and "Fire these two scumbags! I will no longer watch ABC."

23/04/2008