CBS - TV CRITICS AGREE: COURIC'S NEWSCAST IS IN TROUBLE

Newspaper TV columnists appear to regard the firing of Rome Hartman as the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and his replacement by Rick Kaplan as an admission by the network that the Katie Couric-anchored newscast is in trouble. Appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources over the weekend, Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnist Gail Shister remarked, "When you make a change at the top, that says to me they're not happy with the status quo. ... What they need is somebody who's going to come in and have the chutzpah, if you will, to stand up to Katie, because what I've been hearing from people at CBS is that it's been pretty much Katie's way from the beginning, and clearly it's not working." Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times seemed to gloat: "All of the predictions that critics had made about what would happen to the newscast have happened." David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun added: "CBS tried a number of features at the outset with Katie Couric, like free speech, the commentary segment. It didn't work. ... Les Moonves, who is really the architect of this, said for over a year, 'We were going to reinvent the news. We were going to reinvent the news.' Now they are saying, 'No, we're not.'"

12/03/2007