Couric in Afghanistan = Record Low Ratings

NEW YORK — The CBS Evening News has long been the evening snooze and hiring Katie Couric and sending her to war-torn locales hasn’t helped.  Last week, the network hit a record low in the ratings with Couric’s 2-day trip to Afghanistan.  Did viewers simply turn off a show that clearly maintains extravagant budgets and sends correspondents over seas to cover a war we lost interest in six weeks after it started during one of the worst financial crises in our nation's history(and when we could be watching Wheel of Fortune)? 

CBS News producer Rick Kaplan said, "We think the story was worth it.  I make no apologies for it at all. We didn't expect any huge ratings surplus. What was important to us was that we do it and we do it well."

We asked one media analyst for his take on Katie bombing Afghanistan.  Richard Carpman of the media watchdog group, Television News is No Longer Credible, told us, “I don’t think it’s a budgetary concern when people are certainly willing to tune in to see Matt Lauer fending off trannie hookers on the streets of Bangkok during one of his Where in the World is Matt Lauer? segments.  I’m sorry to say because we have let the line of between journalism and infotainment blur so much as to be legally blind, viewers are expecting to tune in to see Couric’s legs and CBS put her behind a desk.  They are not tuning in to see Katie in combat fatigues in Afghanistan.  We have Rachel Maddow for that.  In fact, as you can see NOBODY is looking for Katie in Afghanistan.

But that's not to say she's not on their minds.