It has been 19 months since Katie Couric exited her Today Show post at NBC to embark on a new career as the first female CBS news anchor in prime time. The honeymoon is over as network executives are rethinking her 5 year contract that would have kept her at the helm until 2011. It is increasingly evident that Couric has not been the shot in the arm that CBS needed to pull their ratings out of third place.
Couric, paid $15 million a year, pulls in an average of 5.9 million viewers daily – compared to 8.3 million who tune in to NBC’s Nightly New With Brian Williams and 8 million who view ABC’s World News With Charles Gibson. Some may argue that 5.9 million viewers is still a hefty audience but in the ratings war it sucks wind and CBS knows it.
Though CBS and Couric have made statements to the contrary, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Couric is slated to step down in January 2009. This will coincide with the planned retirement of CNN interviewer Larry King who is 74 years old. That platform seems to be a better fit for the 51 year old who earned her reputation as a skilled interviewer when she was at Today.
CNN President Jon Klein, a CBS veteran with close ties to some at the network, has expressed admiration for Couric’s work, and the two are friends. They had lunch in late January, and the anchor attended Mr. Klein’s birthday party in March. Don’t be surprised if this scenario comes to pass. NBC weekend anchor Campbell Brown jumped ship and joined CNN late last year as a replacement for Paula Zahn.
Check out more photos below.