Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Couric-Palin chat hoists ratings for CBS

Katie's interview style of "polite persistence" pays off

Katie Couric's series of interviews with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has given "CBS Evening News" a boost.

Couric scored an exclusive interview last week with Palin while the Alaska governor was at the United Nations General Assembly to meet with world leaders. Those interviews - which included several clips that received a lot of Web traffic - appeared on "Evening News" on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Neither newscast beat ABC and NBC, but "Evening News" showed ratings increases on both nights. At the same time, CBS News and Couric received an untold number of hits across YouTube and other venues thanks to the Palin clips. Adding to that, a spoof of the Palin-Couric interview opened last weekend's "Saturday Night Live."

Couric, after two years of bad ratings on "Evening News," is once again in the spotlight, as David Bauder of The Associated Press reports.

Related: Transcript: Palin And McCain Interview, Palin talks abortion and newspapers — sort of — in Couric interview


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2 comments:

Ian Lidster said...

Of course, Katie's back doing what she does best -- interviewing. I always found her too biased to be an effectively neutral talking head. She was, to me, the epitome of the Peter Principle. She should have heeded Barbara Walters' earlier gaffe in the same direction. And ultimately Barbara, of course, went back to interviewing.

Deb Sistrunk Nelson said...

Ian: I think you make a very valid point.