David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Costly Katie Couric
Perhaps inadvertently, the New York Post came up with a reason you might consider watching Katie Couric’s “CBS Evening News” over the competition that’s currently steamrollering her: You’re worth more to her as a viewer.
Using quantum mathematics or perhaps an abacus, the Post’s Don Kaplan calculated that a viewer of “NBC Nightly News” costs the network about 55 cents, an “ABC World News” audience members sets the network back 89 cents and someone watching Katie comes at the first-class premium of $2.51.
These prices are based solely on the ratio of viewers to anchor salary: Couric makes $15 million per annum and draws 5.9 million viewers per night, as compared to ABC’s Charlie Gibson ($7 million; 7.78 million viewers) and NBC’s Brian Williams ($4 million; 7.27 million). Of course, this doesn’t even figure in the cost of running the entire network news divisions; it’s more a pure-and-simple popularity contest. Twisting the knife a little further, Kaplan pointed out that Couric has lost more viewers from her debut than Dan Rather averaged before he left the air (he averaged 7 million; she’s seen 7.7 million viewers abdicate from her premiere week).
So: Which would you rather be: A dime-store 55-cent NBC patron, or a tony $2.51 Couric connoisseur?