I just watched the Evening News online simulcast. For the most part, it went off without a hitch. With all the online extras CBS has padded the Evening News with, it did take me a few minutes to figure out how to navigate to the simulcast. When I found it, CBS asked for a username and password, which I created, and then loaded the show. We had it on TV in the next cubicle over and the webcast was about 30 seconds behind. The audio was good and so was the video flow - no stopping and starting. Although there were rewind, fast forward and pause buttons, however, my video player did not allow me to perform any of those functions. Under the player, there was an option to share the video, although the text accompanying that related only to the first story, Lara Logan's piece on the Taliban in Afghanistan, so it was a little confusing whether the site was offering to share just that story or the entire newscast. There was one moment, right after the Morgan Spurlock "Free Speech" segment where the video dropped out and was replaced by a screen saying "The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric Will Be Right Back." About 40 seconds later, the program returned. There were no ads on the video player itself, but rather just on the CBS News main page, which was nice. I left open the browser window and the program replayed automatically without a request from me to do so.
By Anne Becker
