Report: Katie Couric Could Bolt CBS Evening News For A Daytime Talk Show

by Mark Joyella | 5:49 pm, December 15th, 2010

» 23 comments

Broadcasting & Cable‘s Paige Albiniak reports, syndicators are very interested in negotiating a daytime TV deal for CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, “should renewing her contract with CBS not pan out.”

Couric’s deal–which reportedly pays the former TODAY host $15 million a year–is set to run out next May. Sensing an opportunity “multiple syndicators” have approached Couric, Albiniak reports, to talk about “the daytime option.”

If CBS fizzles, a daytime deal could mean big bucks, but not Evening News big:

“She could get in there and command a lot of money,” says one syndication executive who spoke anonymously because they could be a potential bidder for a Couric show.

If Couric and her team can negotiate an attractive package at CBS News, that is probably where she would prefer to stay, say sources. But if syndicators can devise an even more appealing deal – that would likely include Couric creating her own production company and multi-platform offerings — she could perhaps be convinced to make the switch.

If Couric wanted to make a move to daytime – which would not pay her as much as her current CBS News contract, but could pay as much as $5 million a year plus a piece of her show, estimate sources – 2012 would be a good time to do it.

A Couric spokesperson tells B&C “Katie is very happy at CBS and proud of her award winning team.”

broadcasting & cable, CBS Evening News, daytime tv show, Katie Couric

ModerateMan

I don’t know how she would compete against the soap operas and trash shows of daytime T.V. The “great unwashed” probably wouldn’t turn the channel for the super intelligent Couric.
CAconservative

Bolting before she gets booted?
Dave Richards

ModerateMan said:
I don’t know how she would compete against the soap operas and trash shows of daytime T.V. The “great unwashed” probably wouldn’t turn the channel for the super intelligent Couric.

Super intelligent? The woman is a few bricks shy of a full load. Sounds to me they are looking for someone to replace Oprah.

Just what we need. Another weeping, crying audience full of women.
Big Eddie

She may walk . People her age don’t bolt .
SarahP

Dave Richards said:
Super intelligent? The woman is a few bricks shy of a full load. Sounds to me they are looking for someone to replace Oprah.

Just what we need. Another weeping, crying audience full of women.

Right, well you are a regular brainiac as it were Dave so I suppose you know what you are talking about.
ModerateMan

ModerateMan said:
I don’t know how she would compete against the soap operas and trash shows of daytime T.V. The “great unwashed” probably wouldn’t turn the channel for the “super intelligent” Couric.

I should have put question marks around it: for the “super intelligent” Couric.
ModerateMan

I wonder if she’ll host her show in the middle of the country. you know… maybe Boston.
SarahP

ModerateMan said:
I wonder if she’ll host her show in the middle of the country. you know… maybe Boston.

I’m sorry Boston is on the east coast.
notsofast

“Bolt?”

LOL

She will be fired.
libra blue

Let me guess, she will be calling her new show “Katie”.
newzmaker

Great idea for Katie. She, imo, hasn’t practiced professional journalism for years.
SUPER Chundy

From Murrow (Greatest) to Cronkite (Great) to Rather (Mediocre) to Couric (Disaster). At CBS we can literally trace the downfall of journalism and the rise of pop culture as news.

The media doesn’t have a liberal bias; it has a bias towards the sensational and trivial. Couric is the embodiment of this: she’s not a journalist who made her stripes as a war corespondent or beat reporter, but as a celebrity.

Fire her and replace her with someone who is even more attractive, less qualified, and as soulless as she was. All in the name of selling old people more pharmaceuticals they don’t need.
SarahP

newzmaker said:
Great idea for Katie. She, imo, hasn’t practiced professional journalism for years.

Yeah, maybe she’ll call her new show Katie or something..
TristramShandy

Wow, great picture, Katie. Do you even have pores on your face or blood vessels in your eyes?

God, I hate being under SaraP. You can taste the stench as it drifts down from the dead tissue being sloughed off by discharge and necrosis in the folds of her tummy.
Tucker P.

I doubt if the people who like her care .
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Westover/1496648721 Tony Westover

This whore is still around?
Just4thefax

Fact: W-please, Who would miss a looser like this! That better more politically correct for you!
Just4thefax

SarahP said:
Yeah, maybe she’ll call her new show Katie or something..

Fact: You are in the running for being the most dumb shit poster of the year! sarah p, elaine b, iris, kermit, skyfet, rrk, black willing widow, super clunky and a few others are all down to the wire and results will be posted here on Mediaite before the new year!
TCinAZ

That sounds Great!

So CBS can call her yackfest, Perky..Elitist..Overpaid..Nitwit, or “(Proggie) PEON” – who thinks she’s smarter than she actually Is, but whose been duh, duh, Decimated by Ann Coulter, and by Condi (among others), which is why she hasn’t “interviewed” them since, and CBS can park what’s gonna be That turd of a show right next to the herky-jerky Early Show.

Oh wait, does CBS still Have an Early Show?
goldmind

Does my remote control me?
TfT

But, she doesn’t have her smart glasses on in this picture. Katie should get fired, she doesn’t have the gravitas it takes to command an audience who can believe her in the evening news slot. She is a light weight who thinks she is a heck of a lot smarter than she is. I think she should go on DWTS and do her dirty dancing gig; that’s about all Katie is good for.

Bolt, fired, leave…whatever, she has done nothing for CBS except maybe help institutionalize the whole “Corrupt Bitch Station” thingy.
redwriteblue

The wisdomers at CBS are moving the “Evening News” to 6:30 P.M. up- against the ABC-NBC progranms so whatever audience she has managed to build will be confused and look for another news alternative.

CBS does the same thing every spring when it preempts the early-evening programming to run the “March Madness” college basketball games, so Katie never had a chance to build an audience.

Sarah Palin is still hurt about that infamous interview with Katie and has been doing a lot of reading as her political ideas have been developing:

http://www.tcunation.com/profiles/blogs/sarah-palin-america-by-heart
Nahu Tuk

Her ratings have only one direction to go.