Katie Couric and the last Newsbreak
Last Friday at the end of The Guiding LIght, Katie Couric closed down another long running CBS broadcast, CBS News Newsbreak. For most of the last 30 years, CBS has aired the 1:00 updates, at one point three times a day at 11:57, 3:57 and 8:57PM. Now there are none.
Beginning in the 70s, all three networks had primetime news updates: ABC News Brief; CBS Newsbreak; and NBC News Update. They were a quick capsule of the day's news for those who missed the evening news broadcasts. Here's a terrific example from NBC in 1976, with Tom Snyder doing seven stories in just 50 seconds. All the primetime updates are gone now, replaced by more commercials and promos. Whatever happened to the public interest?
With the advent of 24 hour cable news and the internet, some say the updates are no longer needed. But 10 to 15% of all viewers still rely on over the air television and have no access to cable news. If you do decide to take a look at primetime on FOX, MSNBC, or CNN, mostly you get shouted opinions and celebrity interviews, not much in the way of hard news. Networks still use the public airwaves, one minute of news in primetime does not seem too much to ask.
Comments
No more Guiding Light and news is more entertainment now than anything else. Do we really need an extra hour of fluff every morning to compete with Entertainment Tonight? They won't miss it until ALL of it is kaput.
My memory may be fuzzy, but didn't these start out as "Bicentennial Minutes" in July, 1975, leading up to the Bicentennial, and then turn into Newsbreaks? I think CBS was the first and the other 2 networks copied.
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