Couric ready to just sit down, do the news

In just months, the job of evening news anchor has changed markedly; it's no longer a half-hour behind the desk each night and quarterbacking coverage when a major story breaks out. ABC has an Internet newscast in the afternoon, and NBC's Williams contributes to a video blog every morning and writes his own Web log in the afternoon.

Couric is diving right in, too. She'll run down the day's top stories each afternoon on the Web, participate in a Web log, record a one-minute "Katie Couric Reports" each day for radio, Internet and wireless users, and anchor CBS Radio's 5 p.m. newscast.

"I think that the anchor needs to have a presence through a variety of platforms today if you want your product to have as much reach as it can," she said. "So I'm going to be multitasking as much as I can."

Don't forget her reports for "60 Minutes." The first, timed to the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, will air Sept. 10.

Small hints about what a Couric newscast will look like have emerged. A new regular feature, "Free Speech," will give selected experts time to opine on issues. A new medical correspondent has been hired. Schieffer will have a periodic role from Washington, but it's unclear exactly what he will do.

Dangers in making sudden, dramatic changes
Couric and her executive producer, Rome Hartman, are well aware of the danger in trying to dramatically and suddenly change a programming form with among the oldest audiences in TV.

But the newscasts have been "consistently formulaic" so that even slight retooling will make it feel fresh, she said.

Since Couric is the first woman hired specifically to anchor a network evening newscast herself, there's a lot riding on her success, said Deborah Potter, a former CBS News reporter and now executive director of the News Lab think tank.

It's a long time coming in an industry where, according to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, 40 percent of the journalists in local news are women, Potter said.

CBS would be wise not to expect any sudden miracles in the ratings. Despite all of the personnel changes, the ratings pecking order — NBC first, ABC second and CBS last — is exactly the same as it was two years ago before Brokaw retired. Viewers don't change habits easily.

"That's one of the downsides of this business: the demand for instant results," Potter said. "Add $15 million and stir and we get a large audience. There probably will be a bump (in the ratings for CBS) and then it will settle back, and I hope she will settle in and begin building an audience."

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