• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, April 9, 2015

Who will slow-jam the news for us now?

Perhaps not your fun-loving network anchorman, now that the suggestion has been made in a prominent magazine that the concept of a news anchor is outmoded, like so many other examples of our so-called “legacy” media that have been done in by modern technology (i.e., the Web).

"The network-news anchor as an omnipotent national authority figure is such a hollow anachronism in 21st-century America that almost nothing was at stake” when NBC suspended Brian Williams, said the story in New York magazine -- referring to the drama that erupted earlier this year over the way Williams misrepresented his role in news stories he reported for “The NBC Nightly News.”

Williams, of course, was more than just a news anchor. He enjoyed “slow-jamming the news” with Jimmy Fallon and even reportedly expressed interest in replacing either Jay Leno or David Letterman on their late-night comedy shows.

This magazine story/commentary on network anchordom was written by Frank Rich. It carried the headline “A Dumb Job” with the subhead: “How is it possible that the inane institution of the anchorman has endured for more than 60 years?”

The story then goes on to detail the history of the word “anchor” and how it came to be hung on the men (in most cases) who read the news aloud on TV -- even men who seemed disinterested in the news per se such as John Cameron Swayze. Yes, this piece came to the conclusion that Swayze wasn’t a serious newsman when he anchored “Camel News Caravan” in the 1950s, which isn’t exactly news -- nor would it seem to be relevant in a discussion about the state of news anchoring today.  

Basically, when you boil it down, the point of the piece seems to be: with so many different ways of consuming news today, who needs some guy reading the news to you on TV? I get it -- the writer and his editors were trying to produce a provocative who-needs-it commentary about the supposed demise of the “trusted” TV anchorman.

They picked an easy target. TV news anchors have been satirized for decades -- made fun of for their perceived vanity and shallowness. And it’s true -- some of them are shallow and vain. One anchorman once told me: The credo of the successful TV anchorman (and he was one of them) is to be a mile wide and an inch deep.

So maybe it’s true that we don’t “need” such a person to read us the news. But the evidence shows that we still “want” such people -- which flies in the face of this New York magazine piece.

I guess I’m old-fashioned, but to me, the ratings tell the story. While this magazine commentary is relegating news anchors and, by extension, their “old school” network newscasts to the trash heap of mass-media history, I’m looking at the total audience figures for the three network newscasts and finding they’re not doing badly at all.

In the most recent Nielsens -- released this past Tuesday for the week of March 30-April 3 -- “ABC World News Tonight” averaged 7.997 million viewers, “The NBC Nightly News” (now featuring Lester Holt) had 7.913 million and “The CBS Evening News” had 6.575 million.

In the world of network television today, if these newscasts were prime-time network shows, “World News” would rank 20th out of all prime-time shows (according to last week’s prime-time rankings), “NBC Nightly News” would be 21st and “CBS Evening News” would be 32nd (out of 93 shows).

The demo ratings aren’t bad either for the network newscasts. Among 18-49 viewers during the week of March 30-April 3, for example, “World News” had 1.286 million viewers, “Nightly” had 1.228 million and “Evening News” had 981,000.  For ABC and NBC, those numbers are better than nearly a third of prime-time network shows. For CBS, well, it’s better than about a quarter of them. And 18-49 viewers are not even the target demo for network news (they aim traditionally for 25-54 viewers).

The point is this: It’s easy to write a commentary that questions whether we “need” traditional TV newscasts with anchormen and anchorwomen. But this New York magazine piece would have you believe that these traditional TV newscasts and news anchors are like the Edsels of the TV business -- mainly, something no one could possibly want “in this day and age.”

Well, apparently, millions do want them -- which means they’re still worth money to the networks that produce and air them. Ergo, contrary to what New York magazine might think, there is something at stake here. There’s still value, and a considerable amount of gold, in them thar traditional TV news brands.