The Red Queen's Race Marches On

Like Spinal Tap’s manager, Les Moonves wouldn’t say that CBS’s audience is shrinking…but it is becoming more selective:

CBS’s loss might be ABC’s gain, but according to the CEO of CBS Corp., those aren’t viewers the Tiffany network wants. Portfolio.com’s Jeff Bercovici, at the UBS media conference in New York, writes about Les Moonves’ answer to a question about The CBS Evening News’ ratings story:

“I am concerned that the average person who watches evening news is 61 years old,” Moonves said. “We tried to get that a bit younger. People flipped over to Charlie Gibson, but those are mostly 60-plus[-year-old] men. That’s not a demographic we want.”

>More: With CBS Evening News down 15% among the A25-54 demo, year-year a network insider asks, “Exactly which demographic does Les Moonves want?”

Meanwhile, it sounds like NBC will be turning more lights out than just its football broadcasts.

Finally, over at ABC, with a writer’s strike muzzling the big talkers, “Nightline Tops Leno & Letterman.”