CBS fires Katie Couric's top producer - appoints former CNN and MSNBC president Rick Kaplan

[Kadie]

CBS fires Katie Couric's top producer
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
9 minutes ago


NEW YORK - CBS News on Thursday fired the executive producer of Katie Couric's struggling "CBS Evening News" broadcast and appointed former CNN and MSNBC president Rick Kaplan to the job.

Kaplan replaces Rome Hartman, who had position since before Couric began at CBS last September, said Sean McManus, CBS News president.

The newscast has been a distant third in the ratings behind ABC and NBC. During last month's pivotal ratings "sweeps" period, Couric's average of 7.6 million viewers was 6 percent down from what Bob Schieffer recorded in February 2006.

More troubling to many who watched it was the newscast's apparent confusion in direction, driving viewers away from an anchor given a multi-million dollar commitment to jump from NBC's "Today" show.

CBS' shift comes less than a week after NBC News announced that the executive producer of "Nightly News," John Reiss, was leaving. Longtime ratings leader NBC and anchor Brian Williams have been sliding in the ratings as ABC's "World News" with Charles Gibson has won for three of the past four weeks.

Before moving into senior management, Kaplan won 34 Emmy Awards as a producer at ABC News. He worked there with Paul Friedman, currently a key deputy to CBS News President Sean McManus. A large, opinionated man with a booming voice, Kaplan was also a good friend of President Clinton.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_en_tv/tv_cbs_kaplan_10

[progressoid]

1. I'm not sure that gonna help.

I don't watch much TV news but I did catch Couric's show a couple times. There just isn't a spark there.

[Delphinus]

17. I watched it, by chance,

last night. I'll watch again tonight as they're doing a "green" series. I don't know ... there's a part of me, as a woman, that wants her to do well. There's a part of me, as a human being, that could care less since she sold her integrity to be in this market.

By the way, did she have something done to her face? Her eyes look all "weird".

[napi21]

2. Hmmm....it couldn't be Katie, couldit?

Idon't pay much attention totheseshows,or any of the anchors, butfrom the few times I've seen the Today Show, it seems to me Katie was much more suited to that show than to being a replacement for Bob Schieffer. She'sa nice lady, but her personality just doesn't fit the image of the program. Perhapse CBS should rethink their move to grant her that lucrative contract.

[Auggie]

3. Should have hired Howard Beale

[Ian David]

4. There's only so much lipstick you can put on the pig called KKKatie Couric. n/t

[tularetom]

5. They're looking in the wrong place

if they want a solution to the problems with that show.

[AndyA]

6. So Kaplan's a friend of President Clinton.

Good. Maybe he'll call that right winger bitch Couric into his office and tell her to cool it with the one-sided, GOP good, Dems bad propaganda she loves to dispense.

As far as being able to "fix" the CBS News, I don't think any human will be able to do that as long as fluff ball Couric is at the desk. She just has no credibility, and quite frankly she's the last person I'd want to get news from.

CBS made a horrible mistake, and now they are paying for it. I thought Bob Schieffer was doing a good job. They should have worked with him instead.

[Jacobin]

7. Why not just get the producer for "E!" and stop pretending she

is a news talking head.

[blondeatlast]

14. Better yet, Talk Soup. Hell, they oughta just bring that show over--it's a much easier watch than KC

[WI_DEM]

8. if this doesn't help the ratings Katie will be the next to go...

Given Gibson's success I bet CBS wishes it had kept Schieffer at the helm, given that his ratings were actually going up from what he had inherited from Dan Rather in his last couple of years. This is not to say a woman anchor can't work. But KC is not the one, imo.

[liberal N proud]

9. I still will not watch CBS Evening news until Couric is gone

[KansDem]

10. What's it gonna take to enlighten these boobs?

Put the loser in the White House and the whole country goes down the toilet;

Put a bimbo in the anchor's chair of CBS News and the whole newscast goes down the toilet.

It doesn't take a high I.Q. to figure this out, yet how many highly-paid "professionals" are having meetings at this very moment to discuss either of these two consequences? :crazy:

[riverdeep]

11. The part of this that bothers me

is that for some people she represents the generic 'woman' instead of just 'a' woman. They begin to draw conclusions that aren't warranted like woman just don't carry authority, they don't have the intellectual focus
because they lack testosterone to do the long hours,etc. Don't laugh, I've actually heard these!

This is a fluffy, shiny, perky shill-who happens to be a woman, nothing less, nothing more.

But thinking about this, I do believe that the incentives for woman to be at the top are different. I think many Americans still aren't comfortable with women who aren't of the shiny perky variety, so those are the ones who move to the penthouse, while the serious ones toil in the bottom strata. Most are like Barbara Walters who wonders what kind of a tree you'd be. The only ones who aren't like that that I can think of off the top of my head are Catherine Crier and Linda Ellerbee, and they are from a generation past.

[riverdeep]

13. Oh,

one more, Christiane Amanpour (sp.?), how could I forget her, she's been great. I'm sure there's a few others, but not many, that fall into the highly prominent serious category.

[progressoid]

18. Christiane Amanpour is great!

But she'll never get a regular gig on US TV. First of all, she's waaaay to intelligent. Regardless of her gender, Americans don't want to learn, they want to be entertained. Probably why Katie isn't working out so well. She's better at entertaining than enlightening.

The other big draw back for Christine is that she is of Persian descent. nuff said.

[Norquist Nemesis]

12. Gosh, I though Katie was promoted as a "tough journalist"

and now we know it's all her producer's fault! WOW!

As for Kaplan, he left CNN as President of US operations and moved on because of...low ratings. And MSNBC he left as President because of...low ratings. Guess he thought it was a good career move to go back to the trenches as a producer! LOL!

[buff2]

15. They should have cut to the chase and fired the REAL problem

Katie Couric. She was a disaster on the Today show and she is a disaster for CBS "news".Why do they always keep the people who drag them down??? :eyes:

[blondeatlast]

16. Doncha just love bidness today? Go after everyone else except the failure

to whom you gave the obscene salary--but make sure the failure stays on the payroll.

They oughta tar and feather the dimwit who thought this was a good idea in the first place.

Word to the CBS News Powers-That-Be:

It's Katie, stupids. She's simply awful at straight news.