Sunday, June 3, 2007

Couric's Ratings Speak Volumes About Image

The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric has suffered tremendous ratings downfalls since Couric took over for Bob Schieffer on September 5, 2006. Her first broadcast drew in 13.6 million viewers. During the week of May 20-26, the news program averaged 5.96 million viewers (credit Bloomberg.com for the statistics).

Many believe that this is a case of "older white male domination" of the media, and so forth. However, I'm not sure how a few older while men in suits control the remote controls of millions of Americans, who switched over to other news programs on other channels.

In fact, what I think this proves is that America has no problem with middle-aged to older white males broadcasting, or in any position of power, as long as they have substance.

Not to say that Katie Couric is a bad anchorwoman, but she simply isn't seen by many Americans as a journalist with high credentials and substance...at least, not enough to be anchoring the evening news on one of the big 3 networks.

This tells me that those decrying the idea of "jowly, older white men" shouldn't be running for political office, because they don't have the right "look" is somewhat bogus. When you boil things down to the bare-bones basics, substance is what eventually motivates Americans in one direction or another. Whether it be moral substance, ethical substance, or political substance...there has to be something beyond the image and the flair.

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