I don’t like to watch videos on my computer. That’s why I
have a television.
But sometimes, I’m forced to. When UConn opened their
disastrous 2013 football season, I needed to flip up my laptop and watch the
fiasco stream through my
computer thanks to ESPN3.com.
I watch videos on my computer during the workday all the
time. I stream my CEO’s appearances. I watch news segments pertaining to the news industry.
So I watch a lot on my computer. Yet I don’t think I do and
I certainly don’t choose to. When I’m home, when I’m on my couch, I much prefer
to watch my high-def television to my laptop screen.
Or do I?
All of these thoughts ran through my head as I read the announcement
that Yahoo
had signed Katie Couric as its Global Anchor – who really knows what that
means. The response from fellow Yahoo writers, particularly from the college
football division that I see on Twitter, was of pure joy.
My initial reaction was to draft a tweet mocking Couric for her
swift fall from the public eye. Less than a decade ago, she was the anchor of
the nation’s most popular morning show. Less than five years ago, she was the
first woman anchoring evening news on broadcast.
Now, she’s hosting a syndicated, afternoon talk show and
joining Yahoo for a vague, undefined role.
But I never hit send on that tweet because I don’t want
people to mock me for it if this partnership works out for Yahoo.
As a sports nut, I know the type of excellent editorial work
the company has done in sports – especially Charles
Robinson’s investigative work that led to the massive Miami scandal, which
eventually became a massive
NCAA scandal.
But Charles Robinson, in the grand scheme of things, means
little. The fate of Marissa Meyer and the Yahoo brand does not rise or fall
based on its sports department. Robinson could find another job. Yahoo would
exist without him.
Katie Couric, though, is a different game entirely. This is
a woman who carries an enormous brand – a name value nearly unmatched in the
news world, particularly compared to other females. Is there a more well-known
female journalist?
Does that matter?
When Couric moved to the CBS Evening News, her ratings did
not show the same prowess that she had while at Today – while at Today, ratings
remained strong due to her replacement.
Does Katie Couric have an audience? Does any journalist in
news truly have an audience?
We have seen a change in the past 10 years – first driven by
cable news, and then exacerbated by social media – to personality-driven news
coverage. CNN doesn’t cover the news in primetime – Anderson Cooper does. MSNBC
doesn’t discuss the politics of the night – Rachel Maddow does.
What have we learned?
We have learned consistently and constantly that the news
drives ratings, over and over and over. We see ratings
go up during elections – we see them crater during slow news cycles. We see
people flock to cable news in
the wake of tragedy, while largely ignoring it otherwise.
Is the landscape of news really changing?
As the Communications Director for the Newspaper Association of America, I see all the
stats, I get all the questions and I field all the theories. Based on the
number of articles written about social media, you would assume that every
adult in the world gets its news
from Twitter.
In reality, according to Pew Research, the number is 8
percent.
That number seems low, right?
During the Kansas/Duke basketball game earlier this month,
Andrew Wiggins – the superstar from Kansas and heralded as a possible heir to
LeBron – was trending. My mobile app had recently gotten an upgrade and it told
me (why, I have no idea) how many tweets about Wiggins there were to make him
trending. It said 5,000.
5,000? That’s it? We would find out later that 3 million
people watched the game. 5,000 is such a tiny fraction of that audience – and who
knows how many of that Twitter number were actually even watching.
The YouTube Music Awards were supposed to mark a huge step
in the evolution of YouTube as a true alternative to television. There was a
huge buzz prior to the show, with 60 million votes allegedly cast and 10+
million views on the clip announcing the show.
As the show aired, AdAge counted
on average about 200,000 people watching. The MTV Video Music Awards had
drawn 10 million. The streaming show was a failure, a bomb and, now, a
historical footnote.
What makes the move of Couric to Yahoo so head-scratching is
the age-skewing of news coverage – the average
age of a Fox News viewer is 65, CNN is 63 and MSNBC is 59.
If you want to attract a digital audience, why would you go
after the people least likely to
watch content online? Do Meyer and Yahoo believe that the addition of a 56-year
old news anchor is going to bring my parents to the Internet and away from
their television – or somehow engage the youth of America in a way it has shown
absolutely no interest in so far?
If you’re curious about my answer to the headline, I have
none because I am so thoroughly confused by the motives on both ends. Unless
her salary is astronomical, I don’t know why Couric would forsake a platform
like television for an ancient, in Internet years, company. Unless her salary
is non-existent, I don’t know why Yahoo would take such a bold move on building
a digital news outlet online.
The biggest problem with Yahoo’s splash hire is what lies
ahead for the debut. Today, the news is sunshine and roses and free
publicity, such as this blog post from yours truly. Yahoo was a dead brand
not less than 2 years ago, so maybe the Couric is hire if only to inject life
and grab headlines again.
Yet when Couric begins her job in early 2014, the early
returns will be heavily scrutinized. Whatever she is able to produce, whatever
viewership follows her online, will be miniscule compared to her television
days and those will be a round of headlines Yahoo must be dreading.
In 2023, Couric’s hiring may be lauded as the moment online
news took the next step and started its evolution into a mainstream force.
Or, like the YouTube Music Awards, it will fade away,
rendered as nothing more than a historical footnote and another string of
failures written on Yahoo’s tombstone.
What do you think is going to happen?
Follow me on Twitter
Comments
Post a Comment