What I Don't Get About Why Katie Couric's Producer Got Fired

Got a call today from a producer for Howard Kurtz's media show on CNN, Reliable Sources. Looks like you're going to get some Deggans with your morning punditry at 10 a.m. this Sunday, when I come on to talk about producer Rome Hartman getting fired from the CBS Evening News last night (see Couric's obligatory gushing, regretful comments on her blog here) .

But, as I was spitballing the issues with Howie's producer this afternoon. I  realized there were lots of things I wasn't understanding about this.

-- If CBS News president Sean McManus wants to wait a year before he starts seriously looking at ratings, like he told me last week, then why did Hartman lose his job at the six-month anniversary of Couric's debut -- just a few weeks after the show had posted some of its lowest ratings in months?

-- If CBS wants to turns around its troubled newscast, why did they hire as Hartman's replacement Rick Kaplan, a former CBS employee who was fired from both CNN and MSNBC for failing to boost ratings in jobs there?

--- IF CBS wants to rebuild a news organization still smarting from the drubbing they trook over Dan Rather's Memogate story and the firing which took months to implement, why are they bringing in Kaplan, who has a volatile management style and a reputation for running his newsrooms through fear and intimidation?

-- If CBS ratings crunchers warned them that Couric would draw a big early rating and then sink as all the curious viewers returned to whatever habits kept them from watching the evening news in the first place, why weren't executives like McManus better prepared for the drop?

It seems that CBS bet on a big name to change the game in evening news, and when that big name wasn't enough, they didn't have a plan B ready. Like NBC's recent move to can John Reiss from running the Nightly News, removing Hartman is the biggest change they can make short of replacing Couric -- who they have too much invested in to discard.

I'm still not sure that McManus understands non-sports news and I'm convinced that CBS president Les Moonves -- one of the most brilliant TV executives around -- definitely does not understand TV news.

I still think six months is a little early to be judging the success or failure of Couric's approach, given how slowly audiences change in evening news. But considering the amount of negative emails I got when my Monday story ran on Couric, she's about as divisive as Hillary Clinton when it comes to the evening news audience.

Wonder how Rick Kaplan is going to deal with that? 

 

Comments

[John McQuiston]

Why fire the producer? You answered your own question when you explained why CBS can't dump Couric. Last-place baseball teams replace their managers because they can't get rid of those really at fault for the team's record. Fitting perhaps, then, that just like a losing sports team often does, CBS has recycled another team's (two other teams'!) failed manager.

Mr. McManus might have wanted to wait a year before seriously looking at ratings but that doesn't mean his bosses were willing to wait that long.

More interesting to me than Ms. Couric and her network's woes is the stunning turnaround Charles Gibson has made at ABC from out of the picture altogether to solo anchor and now top of the ratings.

I don't watch a lot of network news so I'm working from a limited sample but one problem both Brian Williams and Couric seem to have is that they're so busy giving me context and perspective on the news that they're not giving me enough news. They both come off appearing too puffed up with their own importance for me to take them seriously as they strain to show off how much they know.