Interviews with Rick Kaplan and Alex Wallace

Steve Safran March 12th, 2007

Broadcasting & Cable has put together web exclusives with Q&A pieces it calls “Take 5.” B&C talks with Rick Kaplan (who has just taken the helm of CBS Evening News) and Alex Wallace, (ditto, NBC Nightly News) both of whom have taken over among ratings concerns at the networks. Tidbits:

Kaplan, on the changing audience:

Today (the people in the audience) come to the TV set having seen the news all day long, heard the headlines, seen the video that’s extraordinary, whatever. They’ve been reading about the news on their homepage, their pager, their cell phone. They’ve seen cable so they come and they’re informed and we have a responsibility if we’re going to meet their needs to carry the news ahead and we have a responsibility not just to repeat things to them but to report things to them

Wallace on the relevance of evening news:

A shocking number of people still watch these shows: 25 million with all three combined. I’m online all day; I get that you can get your news elsewhere. I do think there’s something very nice at the end of the day being able to sit down and be told [the news]. It’s why I love to read the paper in the morning or watch the Today show. I like someone to summarize it for me. I like someone to put it all in one place. There’s a certain editing we’ve done that I think helps the audience.