Leslie Moonves, CBS chief executive, on Tuesday suggested that sexist attitudes were partly to blame for the faltering performance of Katie Couric, the news anchor he recruited to the network with a $15m annual pay package.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sort of surprised by the vitriol against her. The number of people who don\u2019t want news from a woman was startling,\u201d\u009d Mr Moonves said of the audience\u2019s reaction to Ms Couric, who this month brought ratings for the CBS Evening News to a 20-year low.<\/p>\n
He reiterated, however, that he was committed to Ms Couric and that he believed her programme would succeed in spite of its last place standing behind rivals ABC and NBC….<\/p>\n
In the absence of specific research, some analysts took issue with that argument. \u201cPeople get news from women all the time \u201d\u201c on local news, on morning shows. I\u2019m sceptical of his discovery of sexism,\u201d\u009d said Andrew Tyndall, whose Tyndall Report monitors newscasts. He and others have criticised the style of Ms Couric\u2019s newscast, which emphasised soft features over hard news \u201d\u201c something CBS seemed to acknowledge this year when it replaced the producer.<\/p>\n