Evening News Horse Race

Changes at the network helms and addition of Katie Couric have sparked a renewed competition among the Big Three for the top spot in the evening news slot. An Associated Press story shows a competitive race being waged by Williams, Couric and Gibson. In that order. Don't write off Gibson, who even in third place, is within striking distance of first place. With 7.68 million viewers, World News Tonight with Charles Gibson is roughly 600,000 viewers behind Williams' audience of 8.18 million.

What does this mean? The answer: with 30 million regular viewers network news is not dead. In 40 years, the Big Three broadcasts have lost about 50% of their audience. Considering how the news market has fractured with many options both on cable and online, this 50% drop could, and statistically, should have cut deeper.

That the networks are grappling for the top spot is encouraging, proof positive that resources can and probably will be used to enhance network broadcasts.

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Below is the AP article...

NBC pulled ahead last week in the suddenly supercharged network evening-news derby, according to preliminary ratings.

"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" was the most-watched newscast for all five nights, ending the two-week winning streak posted by CBS anchor Katie Couric since her Sept. 5 debut, according to early Nielsen Media Research figures released Monday by NBC.

Final numbers for Sept. 18-22 will be out Tuesday.

The NBC newscast averaged 8.18 million viewers, while "CBS Evening News" drew an audience of 7.69 million, according to the preliminary ratings. ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" was watched by 7.58 million viewers.

Last week, Couric's second on the job, "CBS Evening News" averaged 7.88 million viewers to edge past NBC's audience tally of 7.83 million.

In her debut week, Couric led the CBS newscast to its first weekly ratings win in five years with an average audience of 10.2 million, eclipsing NBC's 7.1 million and ABC's 6.9 million. NBC, the longtime front-runner, has placed first for 112 of the last 116 weeks.

CBS News President Sean McManus has reiterated that the focus of his network's new-look newscast is on "long-term developments, not the short term."

Competing Leads

Today was the sort of news day that sends major, major stories into competition with each other. For me the interest in this day began yesterday morning in Chicago where I had been attending the national Society of Professional Journalists conference. The day began with news of the plane crash in Lexington. Knowing Kentucky was a short six hour drive, I phoned ABC News Radio in New York to see if I could lend my services.

The network was already sending in a correspondent from Miami, an indication that despite the hurricane on approach toward the Gulf, the crash story could be equally as prominent. With other travel plans back to Missouri, I wasn’t sure which tine of the fork in the road I would take. After being put on standby by ABC I waited. Ultimately they said, “go ahead and return to Missouri, but if we decide to go into expanded coverage don’t be surprised if we call.” So began a six hour trip, albeit not the one I wanted to make.

Back to the idea of competing leads...LA-based ABC News correspondent Alex Stone, who’s covering the one-year Hurricane Katrina anniversary put it this way in a phone conversation with me: “it’s going to be one of those days where were saying ‘It’s the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, but first lets turn our attention to another hurricane that’s moving into the Gulf even as we speak.’” In the news business we sometimes refer to that sort of scenario as a delayed lead.

It was one of those types of days that make one wonder: when will it end?, before a sudden reminder that news is ubiquitous and never stops. Days, however, made up of a major disaster’s first anniversary; an approaching hurricane; a plane crash; a dropped high-profile murder case; wars and other tensions are hard to come by.