She's a TV news tradition-buster. She signals gender and generational shifts. She's the savior of a genre. She's got lots of very big teeth. And on Tuesday she completes the triumvirate of Network News: The Next Generation, as the Mount Rushmore of Tom, Peter and Dan is finally resculpted into Brian, Charles and Katie. Not necessarily in that Nielsen order.
Katie Couric assumes Dan Rather's old job next week, but in a very new way, as anchor of The CBS evening News—new set, segments, music, attitude, expectations, chromosomal arrangement. All summer long, the national media ruminated on its potential impact, laying out a social smorgasbord of Meaning. Couric strikes a feminist blow, becoming the first solo female anchor of a network newscast. In Jon Stewart/Bill Maher/Stephen Colbert's pundit-lite America, Couric finally applies the lighten-up-babe vibe to the sober news biz—not to any unseemly comic degree, but enough to make this stodgy format appear loose-limbed and charisma-charged enough to satisfy the emerging blogocracy. And though the average age of net-news viewers is 60 (hey, isn't 60 the new 40 among age-fearing boomers?), and though the three-net combo has been bleeding viewers for nearly 30 years, Katie Couric could resurrect it, carrying ABC and NBC on her small-but-strong, fashion-forward back.
Bully for her.
But keep in mind the early '90s—same network, same expectations, different day-part, different star: David Letterman, destined, with his hip persona, to rule late-night over the comfortable but painfully same-old of Jay Leno. And he did, for a bit. Before critically disdained Leno grabbed the lead back and never lost it. Nor was sassy, exotic Connie Chung, touted for bringing a refreshing twist on news tradition with her ethnicity and gender every time she joined a new network, spared from humiliation (she was last spotted on a sparsely watched MSNBC show, bidding adieu to husband/cohost Maury Povich atop a piano in an ear-torturing rendition of "Thanks for the Memories").
New and improved doesn't always overhaul the landscape, even when it should.
Couric also must cope with what Letterman didn't: a controversial predecessor with whom she shares problematic similarities. Ratings frontrunner Williams is nearly a carbon copy of Tom Brokaw's smooth, reassuring presence, and Gibson has the gift of Peter Jennings' calm authority, if not his understated charm. But Dan Rather's third-place eccentricities (the "Courage" sign-off, the "What's the frequency, Kenneth" mugging, his inept attempts to conceal his liberalism and fight off intense conservative kvetching) all conspired to keep him a ratings also-ran.
Likewise, Couric's bright-eyed assertiveness and alternative approach separate her from the same-olds. Viewer polls reveal that while Couric scores higher in familiarity and positive perceptions than Williams/Gibson, she's also higher in negatives. And her liberalism, barely veiled and sometimes nakedly obvious for years on Today, could be as evident as Rather's, her ideological bias only slightly better masked than the "fair and balanced" frauds at Fox News.
With a sizable head start and a seamless transition, Williams, the Leno of the evening news, will be tough to catch once the Couric curiosity factor—à la Letterman—cools and ratings settle into their long-term patterns. And if their superstar's individuality becomes a liability? If the Nielsen numbers aren't as sunshiny as their anchor? If—make that when—the conservative carpers pile on?
Does CBS have the balls to stand behind the first solo news anchor without them?