> > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:00 AM, Mark J. <[email protected]> > wrote: > > St. Pete Times critic Eric Deggans on NPR's "Morning Edition" calls > > for CBS to move the "Evening News" to 7:30 p.m. and get rid of "ET/ > > Insider," hire more reporters now that $15M a year is freed up and > > merge with CNN already, among other things: > > > > > http://www.npr.org/2011/04/27/135415202/courics-farewell-isnt-the-end-how-to-save-news?sc=fb&cc=fp >
On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: Affiliates won't allow the move to 7:30, the merger with CNN is seen by both CBS and CNN as tarnishing their respective brands, and Katie's salary wasn't what was preventing the network from hiring additional reporters -- they genuinely don't feel the quality of the newscast is suffering and have no motivation to make such a change. I agree almost completely with Deggans and not with Kevin. With Katie taking her talents to Oprah-ville, CBS has some real opportunities. CBS News needs a high profile cable partner to multiply its resources and justify investment in expanded newsgathering infrastructure (which is not really worth it without a larger platform). CNN needs to legitimate its brand as the serious news cable option, and so would benefit from whatever is left of the Tiffany-Murrow-Cronkite luster. Plus, whatever his faults, CNN has not had a real evening newscast worthy of the name since Bernie. It does not have to be a true merger, but an intimate partnership makes a hell of a lot of sense for both companies and the viewer. There are several reasons why CBS cut back on reporters and other news staff during the Katiecast era, but Katie's huge salary definitely was one of them. I don't know what a foriegn correspondent stationed in Brussels or Brasilia makes, but I suspect they could take 10% of Katie's salary and pay for 5 or 6 of them. The 7:30 idea, while the best, is also the hardest to implement, for the reasons Kevin suggests - but not impossible. It would take pressure from the FCC to find its balls and enforce the broadcaster's responsibility to serve the public interest. We know that NBC tried to get out of programming at the 10:00 hour anyway, and Fox seems to have an unfair competitive advantage in only having to come up with 2 hours of programming a night - wouldn't the affiliates be interested in getting an hour for local news from 10:30 to 11:30? Network Prime time can be from 8:00 to 10:00, and the affiliates can use the 10:00 half hour for syndication. That is trading them the 7:30 half hour for an hour of local programming at 10:00 - that has got to be an attractive deal for all parties (I guess not so much for the people who make and work in entertainment programming - but then the growth of programming on the cable spectrum seems to mean there are more, not fewer of those jobs available now then there were in the past anyway. And a 7:30 network broadcast evening newscast, right before the start of primetime, is the best chance of increasing viewership and creating a more accurately informed public. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
