Good Night and Good Luck, CBS

It really was no surprise that rumors of an impending deal between CBS and CNN have resurfaced recently. CBS is said to be discussing outsourcing some of its news-gathering to CNN, and also to share resources on some stories or in some markets.
CBS News is in a flat-out state of crisis. Recent layoffs in newsrooms around the country only dramatized last year's precipitous decline of 13 percent in CBS evening news viewership.

When I started digging into the numbers behind these headlines, my first assumption, naturally, was that cable TV must have fragmented the audience. But I was shocked to discover that only roughly 58 percent of U.S. households subscribe to cable services so far.

That leaves millions of Americans whose only recourse to TV news is one (or all) of the old standbys -- ABC, NBC, and CBS, with a PBS station or an independent local outfit sometimes thrown into the mix.

Looking back over the rapid decline of CBS, it would be tempting to conclude that it only took one big scandal, Rathergate, to destroy decades of award-winning journalism at the network. But the reality is more complicated. CBS News has stayed mired in an outdated business model, and that's why it was so vulnerable when, (as is almost inevitable in media), it made a mistake.

The repercussions of bad decisions by its unenlightened, centralized management continue today. The one-to-many, anchor-centric system is finished, yet CBS hired Katie Couric for five years at $15 million a year!

No wonder she is "failing," with rumors that she'll resign within weeks, amidst new signs of chaos at the top. Maybe CBS should just give up and outsource its whole operation. Poor old Edward R. Murrow must be turning over in his grave.