TVSquad

If you watched the network morning shows this morning, you've seen the shocking sight of the Big Three evening news anchors -- Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and Charlie Gibson -- appearing on each show ... together! Gasp! How can that happen? Don't the networks have contract clauses and armies of lawyers to prevent these things from happening?

Well, I guess the lawyers tend to stay home when a good cause is involved. The anchors went on the news shows this morning to announce a cross-network telethon called Stand Up for Cancer Stand Up To Cancer, which will air on NBC, CBS, and ABC on September 5. The one-hour show will have musical performances and testimonials from all three anchors about the need for furthering cancer research (remember Couric's husband and sister both died from various forms of the disease). Money raised by the telethon will go to a number of organizations and research groups.

Way back in August, I listed my choices for the three worst anchors on television. I said in that post that "later this week" I was going to name the best news anchors on television. Apparently, "later this week" meant seven months later. Sorry about that!

Here are my choices for the six best news anchors currently on television. Feel free to disagree and argue with me in the comments section (as if you need any suggestion from me for that).

"No offense to those over 60, but that's not a demo we want."

That's a quote from Les Moonves at a press conference yesterday, talking about statistics that say the average age for a viewer of the nightly network news programs is 61.

Looks like all of the younger people in the country are getting their news from the web and cable.

So much controversy about Katie Couric taking over The CBS Evening News. And now here it is a year later (she started on September 5, 2006), so I have to ask: how do you think she's doing?

I'll admit I had my doubts and might have even expressed them here, but in reality, I think she's doing fine. She can't do anything about the ratings, and the show was in third place long before Couric took over. As Bill Maher said when he was asked at the time how Couric was going to do, "I think she'll read the teleprompter fine." And she's done a fine job. Sure, there were some odd growing pains, like addressing the audience by saying "Hi everyone," the "Picture of the Week" and "First Person" segments that were dropped, and it looked a while there like they were going to end each episode by showing her legs, but the show has gotten a lot better.

So network news anchors Katie Couric and Brian Williams both signed Stephen Colbert's wrist cast, which is now up for bid at eBay. But why didn't the other network anchor sign it, ABC's Charles Gibson?

That's the question some people are asking this week. Both Couric and Williams played along and signed the cast, which Colbert got from an injury back in June. Colbert has made the cast part of his "character's" storyline. Williams even agreed to wear a wrist bracelet on the NBC Nightly News and lived up to his promise last week.

All this talk about Katie Couric's low ratings, how people don't like her, her New York interview, etc, etc. But did you know that she's actually the highest paid of the three nightly network news anchors?

Couric makes around $15 million a year. Over at NBC, Brian Williams is making around $10 million a year. Charlie...sorry, Charles Gibson? He has the most buzz right now but he actually makes the least, around $8 million a year. He didn't get a raise (nor did he want one) when he made the jump from Good Morning America to ABC World News (though I assume he'll get one when his contract is renewed in two years). He says the money thing is "irrelevent." Well, it would be to me too if I was getting $8 million a year.

So here we go again: yet more ammunition for the "Katie is bad, Charles is good" crowd.

[via TV Newser]

All this talk about how Katie Couric is single-handedly destroying network news (supposedly) overlooks one fact: she's actually losing less viewers than Brian Williams over on NBC.

Couric lost 287,000 viewers over the first 39 weeks of her show compared to what the show did last year, and during that same time, Williams lost 533,000. He's now in second place behind ABC and Charles Gibson.

Of course, it doesn't mean that everyone who is leaving NBC or CBS is going over to ABC and Gibson. I think it's an indication of what's going on with network news in general (and NBC in particular).

Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has some harsh words for the show and Katie Couric.

Rather was on MSNBC, talking to Joe Scarborough (he's in Imus' spot in the morning right now) via phone. Although he said that Couric is a nice person, he also said that the show has been "dumbing it down, tarting it up," and that they're really focusing too much on celebrity coverage now.

That's the opinion of New York Post columnist Cindy Adams.

Besides the hype and media attention and marketing mistakes made by CBS, Adams thinks that it's Couric's voice is turning off viewers. That regular network news viewers want the stronger, deeper voice of a male anchor like Charles Gibson or Brian Williams.

I'm not exactly sure what they mean by "powerful" whenever these lists come out. Does it mean influence? Does it mean the most-watched? Probably a mish-mash of both, since the list includes anchors and network executives. Here's the list, according to TV Week. Last year's rank is in parentheses.

1. Roger Ailes - Chairman and CEO of FOX News (1)

Katie,

There's been a lot of talk lately about the third place ratings that The CBS Evening News continues to get. There are people saying that you aren't professional enough and that the show doesn't cover hard news the way it should. You even fired your executive producer and hired another, and then this week fired a producer for plagiarizing (and just what are those first person "Notebooks" if other people are writing them?). These are all things that you have to fix, but may I make one suggestion that might help immediately?

Don't lead your newscast with news about Don Imus on the day that there was a major bombing in Iraq.

Joel told you yesterday about Rick Kaplan being brought on to replace Rome Hartman as the executive producer of The CBS Evening News. Kaplan is (supposedly) being brought on to replace some of the lighter touches that Katie Couric has brought to the anchor role with some harder news and a different angle (I think the first thing he should do is to just tell her to stop saying "hi, everyone" when she opens the show).

But I'm wondering, will a new producer really help? Nothing against Kaplan (or Couric), but aren't viewers choices when it comes to the network news based on other things besides a new producer (or a new set or new theme music or a new logo)? Sure, he can make wide, sweeping changes, and maybe they'll help the quality of the show (even if they don't help the ratings), but aren't viewers set in their ways? They like Brian Williams. They like Charles Gibson, and these two will battle for the #1 slot. The CBS Evening News has been third for a long, long time, and maybe that's just where it will be, getting 6-7 million viewers a night.

I hope they didn't think the star power of Couric was going to bring the show to #1 quickly, if ever.

Well, that's not entirely true. This post by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is more about Fat Tuesday and New Orleans, but those two phrases just didn't fit into the whole letter "B" thing I had going.

But he does mention Britney Spears and the court hearings about Anna Nicole Smith's body and her baby:

"Viewer warning: there will be no mention of Britney Spears' baldness or rehab in tonight's broadcast, nor will there be any mention of Anna Nicole's "body possession" hearing."

Ha. That's great to hear, though I wonder if he can promise that for every broadcast. I'm sure when the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby is finally revealed and/or there is a funeral for Smith, it will be mentioned. (Plus you can get tons of coverage over on MSNBC.)

But "The Daily Nightly" is a good TV news blog, with posts by not only Williams but other NBC reporters as well.

(Part 4 of 5)

Katie.

Meredith.

Rosie.

They all made big news and big career moves that changed the face of some very popular programs. This whole domino effect started in April, when Katie Couric announced the "worst kept secret in television" that she was going to replace Bob Schieffer as the sole anchor of the CBS Evening News. She spent her summer conducting town hall meetings with regular folk to find out what they want in a national newscast. And her first broadcast made worldwide news because she debuted Vanity Fair's photographs of the elusive daughter of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise. The excitement over Katie lasted for about a week.

I watch a lot of television, but one thing I'd hate to do is to actually keep track of what stories are talked about the most on the three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) every night during their newscasts. Luckily, The Tyndall Report does it for me.

What were the three news stories that got the most coverage during the past year? Obviously, the war in Iraq was the No.1 story, followed by Israeli-Hezbollah fighting and the Hurrincane Katrina aftermath. The report lists the top 20 stories of 2006 (and I was very happy to see that Britney Spears' crotch is nowhere to be found on the list).

The report also lists the reporters that had the most airtime. The top three were NBC's David Gregory, ABC's Martha Raddatz and CBS' Jim Axelrod. I thought Lara Logan would be higher on the list, because I always watch her on CBS. The way her hair cascades down and her accent makes me shiver I think she's a first-rate journalist.