Tag Archive | "rivals"

Katie Couric Steps Down as News Anchor


Katie Couric, the pioneering solo female anchor of an evening news show, announced on Tuesday that she is saying goodbye to the CBS Evening News. The news program is the first evening news show of the network.

54-year old Couric said that she is leaving CBS following five and a half years of success to pursue other and bigger opportunities. She further said that she is confident that the evening show she will leave behind is in good hands. Also, the anchor is very excited about her future undertakings.

She said that she is talking to executives regarding a new TV show but refused to talk about it in detail. Couric said she loves doing a wide variety of different stories and she is looking for a show that will allow her to emerge in a more multi-dimensional media.

The anchor took over CBS Evening News following veterans Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather in September of 2008. However, she failed to pull up the ratings of the show to match rivals ABC and NBC in the ratings.

The evening news, which was once the highlight of evening television in America, slowly but steadily lost audience share due to 24-hour television and up-to-date news over the Internet.

Couric joined CBS after a quarter of a decade presenting “Today”, which is NBC’s most high rating news show in the morning. Since Couric joined the CBS and started the trend of having solo female anchors, ABC also added Diane Sawyer to their evening news program.

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Verizon Wireless Sells More iPhones Online


Verizon Wireless says it has more iPhone sales online than in its local store branches. The information disputes the apprehension that few people welcomed the in store debut, which pointed out low sales on the Apple Inc device.

The company started selling the phone on its website last February 3. Since then, the demand for the phone has been at top levels, Chief Executive Daniel Mead said during an interview with Reuters held at the company’s headquarters in New Jersey.

The phone hit the company’s store shelves on February 10, seven days after it launched on their website. Mead said the absence of longer lines outside Verizon Wireless stores on that day could be due to the fact that around 60 percent of their sales were made through its website.

Also, executive said the iPhone has helped greatly increase the pace at which customers changed to Verizon Wireless from its other rivals in United States. At peak times, the device brought its website up to 100 times more orders than the usual.

Mead reiterated the company’s notion that it would sell as many as 11 million iPhones this year. He informed that the company will report their sales figures specific to the iPhone when it releases earnings on the first-quarter.

The launch of Apple iPhones at Verizon ended the three-year exclusive rights deal with AT&T Inc to sell the device in United States. As a result of the added data traffic from its iPhone users, AT&T was overwhelmed with complaints about its performance. However, Verizon said its performance is doing well even with the additional data traffic received from the phone.

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