A day after CBS News shook up its leadership, replacing CBS News president Sean McManus and handing control of the news division to 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager, comes word the network is eager to keep Katie Couric in her role as anchor of the CBS Evening News–but for far less than she’s making now.

The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz reports CBS wants Couric to remain in her post at least through the 2012 elections–a move that would require an extension of Couric’s contract, set to expire in May:

CBS has announced that Sean McManus will step down as president of CBS News. Jeff Fager, executive producer of the network’s iconic 60 Minutes, will take control of the news division.

McManus will stay at CBS, moving into a new position as chairman of CBS Sports.

Here’s the full news release:

Longtime CBS News correspondent Harold Dow died suddenly yesterday, he was 62. Dow had been a contributor to CBS’s news magazine show 48 Hours since it began in 1988 and a correspondent since 1990. He was a five-time Emmy Award-winner and also the recipient of a RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, an Operation Push Excellence in Journalism Award, and a George Foster Peabody Award.

Let’s get some things straight — Tiger Woods five-minute interviews on Sunday with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi and the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman were just the next phase of the carefully planned PR charade to prepare for his return to golf at The Masters. But more important, it was another step to regain control of the situation. While apparently there were no restrictions set on the questions, the interviewers were confined to five minutes with Woods. That’s right, five measly minutes. What a joke. At this point, five hours wouldn’t suffice.

Former CBS correspondent Bernie Goldberg was on The Factor tonight helping Bill O’Reilly lament the fall of network news. “These guys who run the three networks think their title is President of the News Division,” said the man who once wrote a book called 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (90 percent liberals, apparently), “their real title is “funeral director.”

CBS News President Sean McManus has announced via internal email that Executive Producer Zev Shalev will be leaving The Early Show as well as CBS News to work on “new opportunities.” With GMA going through a major upheaval with staff, some insiders believe that CBS sees an opportunity to take over GMA in the morning talk show ratings.Sean McManus explains the Shalev’s departure in this internal email:

What do Americans think about the way the government is protecting them from future terrorist attacks? Or their financial security? Or their own experience in the job market?

CBS News explores these and other issues in a new multi-platform series, “Where America Stands,” beginning the first week in January. CBS News & Sports President Sean McManus tells Mediaite why, how and more.

In a New York Times story today about CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, she and her bosses quiet critics about whether she’ll be exiting her current role any time soon. “She says she will remain there until her contract expires in 2011,” writes Brian Stelter.

But the bigger story is her next show – an hour-long Web program, debuting tomorrow with the biggest media star of the moment: Glenn Beck.

We’ve got a packed episode of Mediaite Office Hours this afternoon. We’re live from Livestream.com’s studio at 3pmET (back to the original time), with guests including CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus, NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen and Time Magazine columnist James Poniewozik. And of course…you!

It’s time for another edition of Mediaite Office Hours. We’ll be live from Livestream.com’s studio at 4pmET (new time just for today), with guests including CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus and ABC News Political Correspondent Rick Klein. And of course…you!

When we talked to CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus this week about the network’s big victory Sunday, we ended the conversation with a question about the GE/FOX feud. “Thank heavens it has nothing to do with us,” he told Mediaite.

The GE/FOX feud shows no signs of letting up, with Bill O’Reilly turning his attention to a new NBC News anchor last night.

60 Minutes was the #1 program Sunday night and the #2 program of the week, averaging 12.03 million viewers, helped by a high profile James Brown interview of Michael Vick.

But it was also helped by an exciting PGA Championship, which saw Y.E. Yang edge Tiger Woods in a close battle. As Sean McManus, who is President of both CBS News and Sports, tells Mediaite, Sunday was a success for both departments in conjunction – and was another example of the continued impact of one of the longest running news shows, 60 Minutes.

For anyone whose political identity was formed during the poison years bracketed by Walter Cronkite‘s tenure as CBS evening anchor, the avuncular newsman was like the kindly, reassuring narrator of a political horror story.

If, as CBS News president Sean McManus mourns, that Cronkite’s status “will never be duplicated again,” it’s not only due to the modern fragmentation of the news audience — it’s also because, ideally, the country will never again go through such an extended trainwreck.