Good luck and good luck.

Tuesday marked the first night in which Katie Couric hosted the CBS Evening News. It also marked the first time in which a woman was the lead anchor for a network newscast. According to the Associated Press, the ratings were very good:

"The ratings for her initial broadcast Tuesday were 86 percent above what CBS averaged on the same day last year, according to a preliminary measurement of the nation's 55 biggest markets by Nielsen Media Research"

Of course, this was for show #1. Time will tell how well Ms. Couric will do in the coming months. The reviews were mixed on her debut. I missed the whole thing because I was out doing my fantasy football draft (more on that later.)

I think that ABC, CBS, and NBC are back in the Stone Age with their nightly, thirty-minute newscasts, and many times they are simply used as teasers for shows like "48 Hours" that can devote two hours to a single story. These guys can not be blind to the fact that 24-hour news channels and the internet have hurt ratings for the old-boy network of the nightly news. There are simply so many news outlets now that it is very hard to draw in new viewers. I believe that within ten years, the 6:30 news will go the way of the dinosaur.

The true test for Katie Couric will be during her first "major" story as anchor. Dan Rather was always my go-to guy for breaking news such as the events of 9/11. Will the country put Couric's last 15 years of morning cooking tips and "perkiness" behind and trust her to inform them? Time will tell, but she'd better hurry up, TV and the web are becoming more and more integrated, and she may soon find herself up against hundreds of other nightly newscasts instead of just two. **Cheap shot warning** Well, if ratings get too bad, she could always let the camera up her butt again.... **I told you it was a cheap shot!**