Charlie Rose’s interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad was ready at an awkward time for CBS, David Bauder reports.
Not only did “CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley have an interview with President Obama, “the evening news was pre-empted on all but the West Coast by CBS Sports’ telecast of the U.S. Open men’s tennis finals.”
The network posted Pelley’s interview online at 6 p.m. Eastern and cut into the tennis match for a two-minute report on the Obama interview.
“That’s just bad luck,” [CBS News Chairman Jeff] Fager said. “It happens sometimes.”
PBS aired the interview in prime time, where it garnered “less than half the typical audience” of “Antiques Roadshow,” which it replaced. CBS broadcast parts of the interview on “CBS This Morning” Monday and Tuesday. A story about the interview will run on “60 Minutes” this weekend, Fager tells Bauder.
“It stops really being about where it’s going to air because the ability to see it out there online and the ability for people to watch it in so many ways has changed so dramatically,” Fager said.
Indeed, here it is if you missed it:
