Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Katie Couric says she was "overly ambitious" changing the CBS Evening News right away

When trying to change the culture of a venerable institution, you want to move slowly. That would be unsurprising advice unless it came from one of the most powerful media figures in the country, Katie Couric, who answered a question by Andrew Goldman in the New York Times magazine's "Talk" column like this:

When you started hosting the “CBS Evening News” in 2006, there was a lot of talk about mold-breaking. Now the show looks very much like the other network broadcasts. 

In retrospect I would have given people what they were used to, a traditional newscast. And then as they got to know me and got more comfortable, then I would’ve started toying with the format and trying new things. I think we were overly ambitious. We probably would have been better off playing it a little safer.

So: culture, especially a media audience's culture, is stronger than personality.

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