Posh Spice Replacing Katie Couric at CBS Evening News
Jul 17, 2007, 07:36
Her other nicknames are Alien Spice and Succubus Spice.
NEW YORK – Reality television icon Victoria Beckham, known to her legions of fans as Posh Spice, has been tapped to replace Katie Couric behind the anchor desk of the CBS Evening News.
The announcement came on the heels of a stampede of glowing reviews for the once and future Spice Girl’s one-hour television special, Victoria Beckham Coming to America.
“This is obviously the direction in which we want to go,” said veteran television producer Rick Kaplan. “All due respect to Katie, but her insistence on hard news was killing the ratings. We want a face in that chair who doesn’t take herself or the world around her seriously.”
The anointment of Ms. Beckham is calculated to lift CBS’s ratings by taking the News out of Evening News. Other networks tease their viewers with brief entertainment segments, but CBS is the first to feature full-frontal entertainment.
“If you want an analysis of the health care system in the United States, you’ll have to look elsewhere,” said Mr. Kaplan. “We’re betting that more people want to know where Posh got those killer implants and how she goes about choosing her personal assistants.”
Although Mr. Kaplan allowed that Lindsay Lohan might be a worse driver than Ms. Beckham; Paris Hilton might be more wealthy; and Nicole Richie, even pregnant, is more skinny, “but none has Vicky’s je ne sais quoi and fabulous accent.”
Beneath the sophisticated veneer lurks a thumb-sucking imp.
Ms. Couric, who is in Darfur doing a feature about colonoscopies in Third World countries, could not be reached for a comment, but a close friend of the veteran newswoman spoke to THEM Weekly off the record.
“Since Katie began anchoring the evening news last September, the ratings have taken a dive, and CBS was already in last place when she arrived.
“If you ask me,” the friend continued, “Katie got what was coming to her. For years she traded on her youthful appearance; now she’s been replaced by somebody who’s actually young and cute—and who doesn’t need to be Photoshopped in order to look thin.”
In other news, J.K. Rowling told reporters yesterday that after she unleashes the publicity surrounding the release of the latest Harry Potter book to locate Madeline McCann, she plans to use her celebrity to bring peace to the Middle East while simultaneously reversing global warming.
