Perky Katie Firmly in Third Place

All that money CBS spent on the Perky Katie Couric earned them about two days of decent ratings following by a swift decline back to third place - right where they were when Bob Schieffer hosted the show:

Katie Couric's "Evening News" fell to third place Monday night, just six nights after she stormed into first in her debut week at CBS.

Couric's debut as anchor of CBS' "Evening News" brought in well over 13 million total viewers last week. While her audience dwindled from there, she finished the week with a comfortable 3 million-viewer lead over NBC's "Nightly News" and ABC's "World News."

But on Monday, the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Couric resumed a ratings position only slightly better than the one Bob Schieffer left her with. Her 7.49 million total viewers were slightly behind ABC's 7.87 million and NBC's 8.27 million.

This reminds me of a story I heard about former NBC anchor David Brinkley. Some years ago Barbara Walters was tapped to host the ABC news with Harry Reasoner and there was a huge amount of fanfare leading up to the night of the first broadcast and ratings were big. The next night Brinkley opened the NBC News this way: "Good evening, and welcome back."

Devastating. The Reasoner/Walters combo was doomed from the start and it wasnt' long until Walters was "reassigned". I wonder how long until the Perky Katie is "reassigned"?