Of Ratings and Rantings

I bet you've been sitting around wondering, how's Katie doing in the ratings?

Really? Well, maybe it's just me.

Anyway, the folks at CBS are quite happy with the latest Nielsen numbers. But the folks at NBC may be even happier.

Katie Couric won the ratings war for the first two weeks after taking the anchor chair. But she lost the lead last week to Brian Williams and "NBC Nightly News," who has been on top since taking over for Tom Brokaw.

But the good news for the "CBS Evening News" is with the initial hype subsiding, Couric has lifted the perennial also-ran into a solid second place, 492,000 viewers behind Brian Williams's "NBC Nightly News" and 110,000 ahead of Charlie Gibson's "World News" at ABC. Compared with the previous week, NBC was up 5 percent, ABC up 1 percent and CBS off 2 percent.

But CBS's preferred comparison -- to the same week a year ago -- shows Couric's newscast up by 708,000 and NBC and ABC each losing more than 1 million viewers. (That's for the first four nights of the week.)

And in the 25-54 group that advertisers obsess over, there was--drumroll--a three-way tie.

Lady and gentlemen, we have a horse race.

Speaking of ratings, USA Today's Peter Johnson has an analysis of how to get cable ratings in prime time:

"Ranting helps.

"Fox News Channel was first to tap into this a decade ago when Bill O'Reilly began to sound off about his pet peeves. He is now the most popular talk-show host on cable. Others have since joined in, and their ratings have increased.

"Lou Dobbs, CNN's formerly staid business news anchor, has been railing against illegal immigration for three years.