Rita: “CATEGORY 4=viewership”

CBSNews.com’s Public Eye blog has published an internal e-mail that CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein sent to his staffers:

The term CATEGORY 4=viewership. (Everbody knows the cateogires [sic] after Katrina) We need to put it on the screen all the time (in addition to radar). Before it becomes cat 4. PREDICTION: RITA CATEGORY 4. Could replace the generic “Hurricane Rita” lower-third banner. Or better still we could flash the status top left where we put “New Video” in the same large font. Mike, can your guys design something arresting? Wil and David, pls figure out something for tonight in the meantime.

Klein says he sent the message from the BlackBerry so it wasn’t as precise or complete as it would have been otherwise…

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.