"CBS Evening News" Makes It A Later Evening -- Why Not?

Tonight at 8 ET, in what's called a one-night experiment, The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is presenting a special prime-time edition. What's wrong with that?

Not much... but there is something.

First, what's NOT bad about it. Network evening newscasts, the ones at the dinner hour, are losing viewers every year, and younger people aren't picking up the habit. A prime-time showcase serves, at least, as a reminder of what's there, as well as a promotion for the CBS News brand -- which, these days, is less defined than it was in the days of Dan Rather and, before him, Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

But what IS bad about it, even short-range, is that it's another slice of prime time given up to something other than scripted programming. And, on top of that, it's another encroachment of a different TV daypart in prime time.

This is nothing new -- in fact, it's as old as TV itself. A soap opera, DuMont's Faraway Hill, existed in prime time TV in 1946, before there WAS daytime TV. Game and quiz shows were all over prime time in the 1950s, until the quiz show scandals made them run for the hills and hide for decades.

But now NBC is planning a Jay Leno talk show in prime time, CBS has Drew Carey Price Is Right specials in prime time, and NBC is rerunning Saturday Night Live in prime time every chance it gets. How long will it be before we have The View in prime time, or a nightly newscast or issues show stripped across the board, to save costs?

I'm betting not long. And even if the news is good, that's bad news for fans of quality scripted television.