Diane Sawyer's Dream Job. What It Really Says About The State Of Network News

Avuncular she is not. Not so sure that she is "materteral" either. And even if she were, no one is going to say it because materteral is not as much fun to say as avuncular--the beloved adjective used for the past several decades to describe the relationship between television news junkies and the anchors who deliver the news.

The announcement yesterday that Diane Sawyer is finally getting her dream job should be seen more as "one giant step for a woman" and not " a giant step for womankind."

It is well known that Sawyer really really wanted this job. As the headline for Bonnie Goldstein's post in Politics Daily  says: Diane Sawyer Finally Gets Top Anchor Job.  US Post Today

writes,

Her night-side ascension to ‘World News’ after the announcement of Charles Gibson’s retirement was a long time in coming.

Reporting from New York – Diane Sawyer had twice been passed over for
the job of anchoring ABC’s evening news broadcast, first after the
death of Peter Jennings, and then following the abrupt end of the Bob
Woodruff-Elizabeth Vargas pairing that led the network to put the
avuncular Charles Gibson in the anchor chair.

At one time, being the managing/editor anchor of a network news program was the most prestigious news job in broadcasting. At one time, being the managing editor of a city newspaper was a great job. Today, not so much.

In the past 15 years, viewership of network nightly news programs has dropped precipitiously...a trend that no one sees abating. In other words, Sawyer's dream job is about a broadcast news titantic.

This is not to say it isn't a prestigious job. It's just a very risky one. Who wants to have their name associated with a product that continues to lose marketshare?

It gets worse. The demographics of the Nightly News show are very skewed.

Since almost no one under 60-years-old watches the news in the early evening which makes the programs unattractive to advertisers, the news about the ABC Evening News does not mean much.

Only 1.93 million people ages 25 to 54 watched the ABC Evening News on the average day the week of August 17. Total viewership was more than seven million, so a lot of senior citizens tuned in.
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Of course, Sawyer knows all this and she still wanted the job. As jobs go its got to be a ton of fun. Lots of travel. People return your phone calls and you get to talk with the world's most interesting people. What broadcaster wouldn't want to do that?

But Sawyer's insistence that she become an anchor can also be seen as incredibly selfish and disloyal to her employer of many many years. By taking this job, she could be costing ABC millions of dollars in lost revenues. She is GMA's franchise. And it's a money maker.

No one is certain what financial hit the show will take when she is no longer on it. What most people are certain about is that her move to the news anchor desk will not stop the hemmorraging on the evening news.

Depending how cynical you are, Sawyer's eagerness to take this job could be just what the networks need to "reorg their news programming." In a piece for the New York Times, Bill Carter and Brian Stelter explore the image shift that Sawyer's arrival to the anchor desk really means.

It is quote by an anonymous television executive near the bottom of the article that really got my attention. He is referring to the inevitable competition that people want between Sawyer and CBS anchor Katie Couric.

“We’ll find out whether people don’t want to watch a woman anchor the
news or whether they just didn’t want to watch Katie,” said one veteran
television news industry executive, asking for anonymity to speak
candidly about the competition. Ms. Couric’s CBS broadcast is
consistently in third place.

Hmmm..One could interpret this as the perfect setup. Turn the anchor desks over to women and people stop watching. Of course, people have stopped watching long before Katie took over but it feels like a convenient and easy out for the boys.

Here's a prediction. Viewership will continue to decline for all three networks. But since two of the networks are anchored by female, there will be those that say women just don't have the gravitas to do the job. But more importantly, the failure of the nightly news programs will be indelibly linked to women anchors,and that it will make it easier for the networks to pull the plug on the nightly news program when they are headed up by the girls.

You have to believe in the board rooms of ABC, CBS and NBC, there is a strategic team trying to figure out what their news operation should look like in a world where their product is not attractive to a huge segment of the population. If they are not going through this strategic exercise, shame on them.

How much longer can this dying show continue? AT what point will the networks say we have to reinvent ourselves.

The importance of a job is reflected in how many people want that job. Earlier this summer the SVP of programming at CNBC was asked about Erin Burnett's career goals. AT the time of the interview, Burnett had just signed a three year deal with CNBC which includes some crossover stuff at NBC. This is what he had to say.

Asked about whether Ms. Burnett could become an evening news anchor,
Mr. Wald, formerly an executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," brushed
aside the question. "I'm not sure that's something people aspire to
anymore," he said, matter-of-factly.

Elana writes about business culture at FunnyBusiness