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Iraq a ratings drag for Couric

Tue Sep 11, 3:35 PM ET

NEW YORK - If some people thought traveling to Iraq and Syria was a ratings stunt for Katie Couric, it didn't work out that way.

The "CBS Evening News" tied a record low with just under 5.5 million viewers last week, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday. Last week and Memorial Day week are the two least-watched CBS evening newscasts since at least 1987, and probably far earlier.

CBS said it wasn't surprising, and argued that last week's numbers were artificially deflated because of U.S. Open coverage.

The trip's journalism outweighed commercial considerations, said CBS News President Sean McManus.

"We never expected it to do well in the ratings and it didn't," McManus said. "We knew that this was a long-term commitment to Katie and the show and we really felt it was important to establish our reporting there."

Take Friday's broadcast out of the mix and the evening news would have averaged just under 5.9 million last week, which is about where it's been the past few months. U.S. Open coverage pre-empted local news on Friday and many viewers clearly assumed Couric's broadcast would be, too. The evening news had 4.26 million viewers on Friday, Nielsen said.

War coverage took between 80 and 90 percent of the "CBS Evening News" broadcasts while Couric was there. Harry Smith gave a brief rundown of other headlines from CBS' New York studio.

Couric tried to bite into big-picture stories about whether the surge was working and how Iraqis feel about the U.S. presence. She visited a Baghdad marketplace and treacherous roadway, contrasting how they are now with footage of bombs exploding in the same spots months earlier.

The sharper-focused stories were among the most effective: Couric interviewing a family about what it's like to live in fear, Lara Logan's report on hand grenades posing a new threat to U.S. soldiers and Mark Strassman's piece on an independent TV network that preaches peace between religious sects — making its employees targets for violence.