Tonight’s the big night, when Katie Couric makes her debut as old-old-medium CBS’s evening news anchor–but gosh, readers, I’m having trouble positioning the toothpicks to keep my eyes propped open. So instead, I’ll link you to our own Cathy Seipp’s take on the Katie-aclysm for Pajamas Media (hat tip: Instatpundit):


“[D]espite all the hype about the first female solo news anchor, the ‘perky’ factor, etc., it does seem odd that we’re paying so much attention to a change of faces in an aging medium.


“‘We’re getting new deck chairs for the Titanic is the bottom line,’ muttered the Hollywood Reporter’s veteran TV columnist Ray Richmond, sitting next to me at Couric’s CBS press conference in Pasadena this summer.


“CBS has long been known as the geriatric network, and I sometimes wonder why they don’t just embrace that demographic instead of trying to fight it. Older viewers, being older, have more money to spend on whatever advertisers might care to sell them. So I sometimes wonder about all this chasing after that elusive (and poorer) youth demographic.


“One strange, counterintuitive fact about TV is that even though younger viewers have less to spend, they’re willing to spend what they have. Maybe not on mini-vans – but certainly on fast food, beer, acne treatments, cheap clothes and whatever idiotic new movie (‘Accepted,’ ‘Snakes On a Plane’ etc.) the test marketers have dreamed up.”


And here’s a fun video of this Katie-alicious tidbit picked up by Media Research that will give you an idea of what the News With Katie is likely to be like:


“Co-host Katie Couric: ‘It’s ridiculous. I had to take out a loan to fill up my minivan. It’s crazy.’


“- Exchange at the top of NBC’s Today, August 15, 2005. Couric makes about $15,000,000 a year “


Yawn.