The next generation seems particularly indifferent to the rise of Katie Couric to anchor of CBS Evening News.It's nothing personal, I'm convinced. It's just that they don't watch network TV newscasts. They don't TiVo them, either which is why CBS hired a 49-year old reporter to read news to a largely older audience.
I was recently interviewed for an article in the Baltimore Sun on the importance of music to the new CBS newscast. Music and sound effects, special effects and all the visual and audio techniques producers can develop seem to matter too much to television. It wasn't lost on any pundits that the composer who wrote the theme for the Titanic was commissioned by CBS News to write the theme music for the new program. As a reporter for the LA Times pointed out -- too bad it only lasted ten seconds.
Katie Couric symbolizes a generation gone by -- not tomorrow's next generation. They get their news on the Internet when they want it and look at video when they decide. It's all available on YouTube or CNN or -- well, you get the idea.
When will traditional media finally see the potential of building audio, video and text together and simply call it content. When will they get over the fact that they may be a visual medium but they can also do text. That they can be providers of content for mobile devices because mobile content is the future and traditional media is like an oldies station -- yesterday.
Katie Couric matters because CBS made her $15 million a year salary and high profile rescue of CBS Evening News ratings the focal point of the state of traditional media. Yes, music matters -- of course it matters but so does the available pool of viewers and in this case the next generation is taking a pass on Katie Couric's much publicized experiment. They don't come home for dinner. They don't watch the nightly news after dinner. They don't even eat dinner all the time -- at least not a dinner time.
They want it their way -- on-demand, online and increasingly mobile. The first conglomerate to figure this out will do a top-rated, legitimate news channel on YouTube where an entire generation is congregating and they will start a whole new revolution.
