Five weeks after her debut, Katie Couric has quickly dropped in the nightly ratings, delivering her worst numbers by far and finishing third for the second straight week. The “CBS Evening News” is still showing some gains over last year in total viewers and adults 25-54. But for the week ended Oct. 8, Couric’s 7.04 million viewers and 1.9 rating badly trailed NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams,” at 8.54 million total viewers and a 2.2 in 25-54s, and ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson,” at 7.98 million total viewers and a 2.2 in 25-54s. Nearly half of Couric’s debut audience of 13.6 million have tuned out, though that’s not a huge surprise. Media people had predicted, in several Media Life polls, that Couric would sink to second or third after her debut and in the end would not significantly better former anchor Bob Schieffer’s numbers. Key for Couric will be the upcoming midterm elections, as newscasts often gain or lose momentum based on big events, and that will be the first one she covers. Paul Levinson, professor and chair of the communication and media studies department at Fordham University, and William J. McLaughlin, former CBS News correspondent and associate professor of communications at Quinnipiac University, talk to Media Life about why Couric’s ratings won’t rise, what CBS could have done differently, and why the evening news in general is old news news-wise. 
 
Couric's ratings have dropped off quite a bit since week one, from 13.6 million in her first night to an average 7.04 million last week. What is a reasonable level to expect she'll even out at?
 
Levinson: She'll be lucky if she keeps the 7 million. Although she is doing a fine job, her presentation and the “CBS Evening News” in general is not different enough, young enough, radical enough a departure from the show before Couric to change American viewing habits.

McLaughlin: With any luck they will stay in the mid to low 7s, but the trend is downward so I wouldn't rule out a drift into the 6s---or worse.
 

Will she ever rise back to No. 1?
 
Levinson: No--unless there's a story that breaks that has to do with her, as a subject of the story.

McLaughlin: Ratings are usually not that volatile, especially in news. So barring something truly spectacular, like Katie morphing into the earth goddess, I don't see a return to the first slot. That was a fluke born out of marriage between publicity and curiosity that suffered a quickie divorce.
 

CBS certainly attracted a lot of attention for her debut. Why didn't her audience hold more?
 
Levinson: Her brief crest of viewers came from two sources: people who were watching other evening news shows, and people who did not regularly watch the evening news on TV at all.

Regarding the first, people who liked Brian Williams before Couric still like him, and didn't like Couric enough to leave him. Regarding the second, people whose lives don't bring them home at 6:30 p.m. are still living those same lives, working those same hours, etc. 

McLaughlin: She did not hold on to the audience because it wasn't hers to begin with. It was borrowed and duly returned once the audience’s curiosity was satisfied.
 

How would you grade the changes made to CBS's newscast? Are they enough, or should the network have done something more radical? Or perhaps less?
 
Levinson: I would give the changes a B-, at most. They are okay, but nowhere nearly enough to shake things up. The network should have gone with someone with a younger, cooler tone, like Shepard Smith on Fox. CBS should have gone for a faster paced show. And they should have gone for more, not less, hard-hitting news--more along the lines of CNN's Headline News.

McLaughlin: The changes are mostly cookie-cutter or failure, like the “Free Speech gimmick.” The real change at CBS is the acute feminization of the news and those who deliver it. And it is not working. 

Every evening news is a prelude to the end of the world as we know it, and it is the peculiar culture of Americans to expect doom to be announced in a baritone, not a mezzo-soprano. I'm not kidding--the male authority figure is still dominant, something the CBS suits forgot.
 

Do you think it's possible, this day in age, for any of the newscasts to realistically expect to grow?
 
Levinson: No. People are just not gathering around the TV set right after dinner at home anymore. Not only will the evening newscasts not grow, they will continue to dwindle, playing to an ever-aging audience. I predict total viewership on all three networks evening newscasts will be below 10 million by 2010, and even that will continue to diminish.

McLaughlin: None of the nets are growing except perhaps NBC, thanks to MSNBC and CNBC. I predict a Time Warner breakup and either ABC or CBS will pick up CNN. Probably CBS. They must amortize their talent or disappear.
 

Based on results so far, will ABC or NBC be affected by Couric's presence, either positively or negatively?
 
Levinson: All in all, there will be no long-lasting effect, either positive or negative.

Is it too early to label Couric a success or failure?
 
Levinson: I think we can say she failed to do what CBS wanted, but the failure is more CBS's than hers.

McLaughlin: Yes, it's a bit too early to label it a success or failure. Let's wait for the first anniversary. If Katie's still No. 3, even she won't be smiling.
 

Conventional wisdom is that anchors are made based on big, breaking news. Do you think that could eventually give Couric a boost?
 
Levinson: That would be about the only chance Couric might have of surging upward in the ratings.