• Businessweek, Monday, October 15, 2007 10 AM

Network evening newscasts are among the quainter forms of media in our brave new age. As ratings decline and their audiences age, cries get louder to get rid of the evening news altogether. But the reasons to keep Brian, Charles, and Katie employed far outweigh the arguments for carting their newscasts off to the charnel house.

Newscasts are still profitable and bring in about $100 million each in annual ad revenue for their owners. And the per-viewer cost of ads in them is still going up, although more slowly than in some other dayparts, which illustrates a classic media paradox: Broadcast audiences diminish. What advertisers pay doesn't.

In markets airing the network news at 6:30, the programs pulled an average 23.5 million total viewers last season, so whatever network drops the nightly news first gives the others a ratings bump.

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