The $15 Million Katie Couric Experiment is Headed to an End

Implications: CBS and Katie Couric are in discussions to bring an end to her two-year tenure as managing editor and anchor of CBS News. 

Analysis: Amid declining ratings and a weak prime-time lineup, it appears CBS and Katie Couric are about to call it quits--at least according to this Wall Street Journal report.  CBS aggressively pursued Ms. Couric when her Today show contract was up at NBC, and made her an offer she could not refuse.  But regretfully, the audience never followed suit.

The network television news industry is dealing with rising costs, lower audience ratings, and reluctant advertisers.  Television remains stuck in a mindset that the audience gathers around the TV before or during dinner to watch a network newscast, even though there are lots of options with 24 hour television news and of course, the Internet.

Perhaps the Couric experiment will bring reality to today's television marketplace.  You can get better, but you can't pay more.  It truly makes no sense to have three networks vying for the same audience in 2008 at the same time in this highly fragmented viewing environment.  With MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and Fox News available to most households, it is no wonder that network newscasts combined reach at most about 24 million TV households out of a universe of 113 million (according to Nielsen) in 2007, a decline of 5% from 2006.

The timing is particularly interesting as CBS and CNN are according to some--having discussions about possibly combining news operations.  Perhaps the next anchor of CBS news might be someone like Anderson Cooper, whose popularity has soared at CNN.  Ms. Couric will still be around some network--she is too talented and too young to retire.  This article speculates she may end up replacing Larry King on CNN when his contract expires in 2009.