• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 5, 2007

Sixty-year-old men need not apply for being a Katie Couric fan -- because CBS doesn't want them. We understand.

We understand all that old-time research says older demographics don't change their lifelong brand loyalties. To advertisers, that means it's a waste of money in targeting these "playing-the-back-nine" men since they are not going to change their minds about anything.

During Tuesday's UBS Media & Communications Conference, Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corp., discussed the company's newscast.  "I think our product's as good as anyone's," he said. "I am concerned that the average person who watches evening news is 61 years old. We tried to get that a bit younger. People flipped over to [ABC's] Charlie Gibson, but those are mostly 60-plus[-year-old] men. That's not a demographic we want."

What then is the demographic he wants? Ideally, it would seem younger adult viewers 18-49, preferably with a skew towards the even tougher-to-get young men. But in reality, that's not going to happen -- unless CBS News starts doing stories about strippers, entry-level jobs, personal bankruptcies, slacker-ism, and Texas hold-'em tournaments.

Moonves went on to say Couric was the "hardest worker in town." But she was never going to be the main reason why 60-year-old, 40-year-old or 30-year-old men were going to watch the evening news. Those men are too busy doing other things -- like trading players for the fantasy football leagues.

If CBS were to suddenly get a better percentage of 18-49 viewers -- its somewhat more realistic goal -- then the network could claim some success with Couric.

CBS went the safe route with a single anchor -- even if Couric was the first single female network news anchor. It's easier to market one single highly identifiable person than a bunch of anchors -- or none at all.

A more revolutionary route would have been to eliminate the "voice of god" news anchor approach and just get on with it. Moonves and CBS were considering this tactic early on.

Radically different news networks such as cable channel Current, via Al Gore, don't offer a single news anchor. This approach would have been a better start.

Considering Couric's ratings, would the results have been that much different?  Maybe a few old guys would have shown up with their sons.