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CBS Has No Plans to Boot Couric Off News

Show regains hard edge, if not viewers, with makeover

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 5, 2007 10:05 PM CDT

(Newser) – In signing Katie Couric to anchor "CBS Evening News" last year, the network probably didn’t expect ratings to hit historic lows. But CBS is sticking with the underperforming star, according to a network executive, who said it was “the second inning at the latest” in the long game of gaining ground on ABC and NBC, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Couric’s Middle East excursion is emblematic of changes in the show, which in March began abandoning the widely criticized makeover that accompanied Couric's defection from NBC's morning airwaves. CBS is banking on a more hard-nosed approach to lure back viewers, but executives say they are confident they have “the right show, the right anchor, the right team in place.”

Katie Couric, anchor for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, answer questions about Couric's new role as the first female news anchor for a network evening news broadcast during a news conference in Pasadena, Calif., in this July 16, 2006...
Katie Couric, anchor for the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric," and Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, answer questions about Couric's new role as the first female news anchor for a network...   (Associated Press)
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, second left, poses for a photo with Marine Lance Cpl. James Cline, from Asheville, N.C., left, and Sgt. Mary Alice Leone, from East Boston, Mass., as she waits for President Bush's statement at Al-Asad Airbase in Anbar province, Iraq, Monday, Sept. 3, 2007....
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, second left, poses for a photo with Marine Lance Cpl. James Cline, from Asheville, N.C., left, and Sgt. Mary Alice Leone, from East Boston, Mass., as she waits for...   (Associated Press)
Television host Katie Couric watches the Carmen Marc Valvo  fashion show in New York, Wednesday Sept. 14, 2005. Couric plans to leave Wednesday Aug. 29, 2007 for an ambitious reporting trip to Iraq and Syria _ the CBS anchor's first time in the war zone _ in anticipation of a...
Television host Katie Couric watches the Carmen Marc Valvo fashion show in New York, Wednesday Sept. 14, 2005. Couric plans to leave Wednesday Aug. 29, 2007 for an ambitious reporting trip to Iraq and...   (Associated Press)
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