The revamped “CBS Evening News” got a ratings bump for its first broadcast after the exit of anchor Norah O’Donnell – but media industry experts expected the spike in eyeballs to be short-lived, calling the new anchor team “stodgy.”
“No one turned into the “Evening News” to watch Norah because she was not a winner. People were curious and were sampling the show,” a longtime TV producer told The Post, before turning on anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson.
“They looked old and stodgy.”
Their debut Monday pulled in an average of 5.2 million total viewers — a 14% spike from what O’Donnell averaged last year, according to early ratings numbers obtained by The Post.
Still, the program remained firmly entrenched in last place behind rivals ABC and NBC.
“John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois are the poor man’s David Muir and Lester Holt,” chimed in a second network insider, referring to the evening news anchors at ABC and NBC, respectively.
The first source added: “They look like ‘The Odd Couple’ but the difference is the ‘Odd Couple’ had chemistry.”
Calling the debut “uninspiring,” another network insider noted that it would be “clearer” by Friday if the program manages to retain viewers.
A CBS News spokesperson declined to comment.
O’Donnell helmed the ratings-challenged show for five years before being moved out as part of a broad revamping of the nightly news format — which the Tiffany Network had pioneered under anchors Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
During O’Donnell’s tenure in the anchor chair, the show plunged roughly 25% in the ratings, making Monday’s bump a welcomed change.
Still retaining that bump — however small — is a difficult feat in TV news. When CBS tapped Katie Couric as anchor of the “Evening News” anchor, the show saw got a massive ratings spike of 14 million for her debut on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006. By Friday of that week, her numbers cratered to 8 million.
Of course, TV viewership habits were healthier then and the era of the big evening news network anchor was still flourishing. But with the rise of streaming and digital, the importance of the nightly newscast has shriveled.
The new format is the brainchild of CBS News president Wendy McMahon, a former ABC local TV news exec, and “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens, who was tapped to execute the vision.
Part of that vision is to bring more in-depth storytelling to the broadcast, while also lowering the overhead of the show with cheaper talent.
Prior the debut of the “Evening News,” DuBois had anchored newscasts for the network’s local WCBS station in New York. Dickerson primarily served as a political correspondent for various CBS programs and had had a few at-bats as host on the network’s morning show and “Face the Nation,” which didn’t pan out.
“People don’t care who the anchor is anymore. That star power is not as important,” said a network source. “This is a last-ditch hope by CBS to do good journalism and hope viewers stick. Their strategy could work.”
In its first two shows, the program ran segments on how the war in Gaza has helped draw new recruits to Hamas, an in-depth look at how one terminally ill patient turned to a medical aid in order to die and a story on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s preparation ahead of its raids in New York City.
One former TV news executive predicted that viewers would be turned off by heavy enterprise reporting in a 30-minute broadcast.
“I don’t think the audiences have the capacity to absorb a reporting-led show with lots of segments,” the source said.
Another TV insider said the problems were more elementary, noting that there’s only “one camera” for two anchors to look at, which appears “amateurish” and that the set is “too dark.”
“The show looks like local TV plussed up,” the insider concluded.
