Howard Kurtz reports that Katie Couric will be gone from CBS when her contract expires in June and that 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley is a leading contender to replace her.

The 60 Minutes correspondent has long been a favorite of Fager, who doubles as the show’s executive producer. But with Fager taking a methodical approach to his first major decision, Pelley is not a lock. A few short weeks ago, the expectation in the Couric camp—after discussions with top CBS management—was that she would sign a new deal to stay in the anchor’s job through the 2012 elections as she figured out the next phase of her career. But the thinking on both sides has now changed as Couric has aggressively tested the waters—and found substantial interest in her services.

Couric has struggled since taking over the Evening News in 2006 for Bob Schieffer who was filling in after the network dumped Dan Rather after the veteran anchor botched a story on President Bush’s National Guard service in 2004.

Under Couric the news continually finished in third place behind NBC and ABC and ratings touched a 10 year low late last summer.

CBS lured Couric from the Today Show with a five year $15 million per year contract and despite the hype never managed to seriously compete with the other networks as Couric was forced to learn to contain herself to 22 minutes per night of more serious news and little of the fluff she was used to in her previous role at NBC.

The possibility that Pelley could take over the coveted anchor’s chair is a bit of a shock as he lacks the star power generally reserved for those fortunate enough to be anointed to the high pressure and high visibility job but on the other hand he won’t cost anywhere near $15 million and CBS will be looking for a cheap alternative during a period of diminishing revenues.

The longer that CBS drags out Couric’s future the more attention is focused on what a blunder they made by signing her in the first place.

They should put an end to their misery by letting Couric go and move on.

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About the author

Don Irvine
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.

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4 Comments for Report: Couric Out, Pelley In At CBS Evening News

NObama

Katie WHO?

ucm4u

She’ll probably get an offer to join Obama’s team at the WH.

The Major

OK,,,maybe she’ll join BHO’s spin team at the WH . What happens when they hear her salary demands,,,& find out she is NOT a Card Carrying Marxist or Communist like BHO’s Czars,,,& actually LIKES the USA,,,??? NAAAAH!!! She’ll get an offer from a ‘mild’ lefty group like CNN maybe,,maybe not,,
WHO CARES??? besides ,,if ‘katie’ spent all of the 15mil,,TOO BAD!

ctr

I’ve always wondered how Ms Couric might have fared had she done a straight, strictly journalistic interview with Governor Palin, instead of an underhanded, partisan, “gotcha” interview. Of course, Ms. Couric admitted that anything that made Gov. Palin look good had been edited out, and therefore if she had done a nonpartisan interview, it would have nonetheless have been edited perversely [my word]. Still, I wonder, if she had at least tried, if she had insisted to her leftist bosses at CBS that she was a journalist first, a Democrat second, her public stature might have remained high, and she might even have had a few friends amongst the conservatives that she was expected to slander as a matter of course. She didn’t seem to realize how much the public admires and trusts independence in a journalist. It’s certainly true that no matter how honest or professional she might have attempted to be, the scurrilous attacks on Gov. Palin and her family would have continued, but she could have held her head high and would have had some claim to journalistic integrity. I understand that, sadly, she even received some awards for her partisanship.