Report: CBS News Chief Stepping Down

Susan Zirinsky

CBS News President Susan Zirinsky is nearing a deal to step down after just two years in the role and sign a wide-ranging production partnership with parent company ViacomCBS Inc., according to The Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.

A search for a successor to Zirinsky has been ongoing for several months but a candidate has yet to be named. 

Zirinsky has been with CBS News for nearly 40 years, and her first love has always been being a hands-on news producer. As head of CBS News, much of her time is spent managing talent and dealing with corporate bureaucracy, and less with actual newsgathering.

The new production deal would allow her to return to her roots and create content not only for CBS News and its various shows and platforms but also the new ViacomCBS streaming service Paramount+, a person with knowledge of the pact said.

Although Ms. Zirinsky has been in the job for only two years, speculation about her desire to return to producing has been percolating for several months. When she took the job to head CBS News, she retained her title of senior executive producer.

During Zirinsky’s two years at the helm, ratings for the CBS News morning and evening shows continued to decline and still trail the morning and nightly news shows on ABC and NBC.

But both CBS shows have somewhat narrowed the ratings gap with their competitors, which are also losing viewers.

Zirinsky’s big bet at “CBS Evening News” was putting morning show co-host Norah O’Donnell in the anchor seat of the evening show and moving the show to Washington, D.C., from New York. The ratings race among the three traditional network nightly news shows has tightened as well in viewers and demographics, although all three lost viewers in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period a year ago.