Big Ratings on Youtube, Instead of CBS

     Yesterday, the New York Times had an article about Katie Couric, which some of us were crossing our fingers would not make a huge deal out of the whole female-in-the-news issue, again.  It actually didn't! Instead, it hit on the way news is being viewed today, pushing out some of the old fashioned, traditional ways.  

     Couric interviewing Palin was suspected to jump CBS's ratings through the roof, anticipating much higher views than usual.  However, as the New York Times put it, "the CBS newscast didn't even record its highest audience totals last wednesday and Thursday, when the interviews were broadcast."  What happened to the audience?  Instead, viewers got the gist of the interviews from Saturday Night Live's parody of the interview and also from YouTube.  This is direct evidence that the people are choosing the news they want to hear.  One would think that most americans would jump on the chance to see the real Sarah Palin and not just one that has been bombarded by the media.  Yet, "the first interview last Wednesday, for example, has been viewed more than 1.4 million times on YouTube, while the parody of the interview on 'SNL' was streamed more than 4 million times on NBC.com, viewed in full more than 600,000 times on YouTube and in shorter clips many more hundreds of thousands of times," as stated by the newspaper.  

     So, it's true that the audience to traditional news is fading and the new generations are choosing a new media to get their news.  Even with their vast experience in the business, this was not something that CBS expected, quite to this extent.  

     For more the actual article you can log in to the Times here: http//tinyurl.com/Couric-Palin-Results.