Katie Couric - The Right Choice?

The imminent departure of Katie Couric from the NBC "Today" show to the CBS Evening News program is not surprising. The question is, 'Is it the right choice for either party?'

I like Katie Couric and believe she is very, very good on the "Today" morning show. She is a solid journalist, does generally good interviews and as far as I'm aware is a good professional. She is also very likeable with a wonderful, warm, welcoming on air personality. It is this likeability and personality which has been one of the key factors in her ratings.

This is where the potential problems arise. The evening news programs seem to demand a different type of personality. In fact the basic requirement is: Show little personality, present a high level of gravitas and above all rarely smile or joke with your colleagues or guests.

Psychologist Albert Mehrabian suggested that communication consists of verbal, voice tone and body language. Words accounts for 7% of message, voice tone 38% and body language 55%. Now much of this research related to emotional situations and many query Mehrabian's statistics, but there is not much doubt that voice tone and body language make a huge contribution to the communication message.

Katie Couric will not be able to show her full personality on the CBS news program. In other words, the likelihood is that the smiling, vivacious, likeable Katie Couric will be replaced by a serious, passionless, grave Katie Couric. I don't doubt she can, and has presented this image when necessary. The question is will the "Evening News" Katie Couric be as popular as the "Today" Katie Couric. From a career and job satisfaction point of view, it is an interesting and worthwhile challenge for Couric. It will be interesting to see if it will be the right move.