Tuesday, September 05, 2006

TV History Happening Tonight


Tonight, Katie Couric will be making her hyped up debut on the CBS Evening News, replacing Bob Schieffer, who replaced the old block Dan Rather last year. Katie will be the first woman to be the sole anchor for a national evening news program. Last year, Elizabeth Vargas with ABC started the "trend" by co-hosting ABC World News Tonight after long time anchorman Peter Jennings passed away from lung cancer. With her new presence on CBS, they gave her a new theme song, and they will be the first network to offer a live simulcast of the evening broadcast. In addition, she will be offering a "Free Speech" period for viewers to speak their mind and also she and her "company" will be maintaining a blog talking about issues or stories that they were not able to put on the Evening News or that they could not elaborate upon. They want to just make the show more personal and seem more accessible for viewers. Couric is now joining the ranks of Walter Cronkite, Edward R Murrow, Tom Browkaw and numerous of others in Broadcast TV history. It just sucks that whenever they first started talking about Couric joining the network that there were those out there who doubted her abilities because she did some "fluff" work while she was on NBC's Today Show. She has an excellent resume and I thing that she will do a great job at CBS. It will just be weird seeing her in the evening instead of the mornings.. I am excited to see this history making broadcast...

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