Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CBS didn't need to send its new anchor, Katie Couric, on a six-city "listening" tour this week to find out what viewers like and don't like about The CBS Evening News, says network news analyst Andrew Tyndall.
CBS "is much more sophisticated than that," he says, and routinely taps into how viewers are feeling about the No. 3-rated broadcast through focus groups and opinion surveys.
But in terms of massaging affiliates, where local news programs provide the all-important ratings "lead-in," as well as getting media attention and creating goodwill for the former NBC Today star who's unfamiliar with local CBS news staffs, "you've got to be impressed with CBS' rollout" of its new anchor, Tyndall says.
Couric's trip, which ends this weekend when she addresses TV critics in Los Angeles, is a "public relations tour de force, perfectly legitimate for a broadcast soon to feature a new anchor, a new set and a new format," says former ABC News correspondent Bob Zelnick, who teaches journalism at Boston University. But "my suspicion is very strong that nearly all the big, defining editorial decisions have already been made and that the CBS moguls, including Ms. Mogul herself, want the public to know and trust Katie, not choose between 'hard' news or 'news you can use.'"
Couric's tour, mixing cancer fundraisers with closed-to-the-media town hall meetings, plus photo shoots with anchor teams in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Dallas, Minneapolis, Denver, San Diego and San Francisco, "raises expectations the News is going to be something new and special. That means that CBS has to deliver, and that isn't a bad thing," says Harvard media analyst Alex Jones.
Steve Mauldin, general manager of KTVT in Dallas, says he came away from events there Tuesday feeling that Couric "really wants to hear what America feels about network news, its role in society and what they can do differently. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't out to break the mold."
But Couric, who starts on the News Sept. 5, told the media in St. Petersburg that "it's going to be an evolution, not a revolution. We're going to make some changes. But we're not going to alter it so radically that people are going to be like, 'Oh, my God, what is this?'" according to The St. Petersburg Times.
Couric was unavailable for comment Wednesday. But she told local residents this week that combining charity work for cancer (she discussed the cancer deaths of both her husband, Jay Monahan, and sister Emily at $150-a-plate breakfasts and lunches) and schmoozing with local stations was a good fit.
"People are being nice enough to spend some time with me, talking to me about the issues they care about and how they get their news ... and I wanted to leave something positive behind ... really as a way to say thank you," she said at a news conference Monday, the Times reported.
Sam Rosenwasser, general manager of WTSP in Tampa, says 85 people from all walks of life met with Couric, and he was surprised by how many people wanted to see what they read on the Web covered on TV that night. "Mostly it was stuff that we have heard, but it was good for them to tell directly to the managing editor of The CBS Evening News, 'Here's what I think.'"
E-mail pjohnson@usatoday.com
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
