I had a feeling that this broad couldn’t hack it on her own… she needs a spunky sidekick like Matt Lauer to survive. Let’s face it… nobody likes Katie Couric.

In the same week that the public learned that CBS and Katie Couric had held secret talks about her future as anchor of “CBS Evening News,” the third-place newscast sank to a record ratings low.

The “Evening News” averaged 5.39 million viewers, according to data from Nielsen Media Research for the week of April 14. Besides the reports about Ms. Couric leaving that emerged that week, CBS News had to deny a report that it has considered outsourcing some newsgathering to CNN.

The newscast, which made history when Ms. Couric became the first solo female anchor on a network evening broadcast, lost 150,000 viewers from the previous week’s average of 9.56 million.

“NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams” showed week-to-week growth with an average of 8.17 million total viewers. Of those 2.39 million were in the key news demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds.

ABC’s “World News With Charles Gibson” averaged 7.51 million viewers, 2.22 million of them in the key demo, down 520,000 viewers and 320,000 viewers, respectively, from the previous week.
Ms. Couric’s “Evening News” averaged 1.69 million viewers in the key news demo, a decline of 70,000 from the previous week.

On April 18, Leslie Moonves, the CBS president and CEO who wooed and won Ms. Couric from NBC’s “Today” show with a $15 million-per-year contract, made an appearance at an “Evening News” staff meeting, addressing the issue of Ms. Couric’s future. He told workers he is proud of Ms. Couric and the newscast and that she would be the network’s flagship anchor for a long time to come.

Source: TV Week