Plus Pages

Saturday, April 9, 2022

Norah O’Donnell Extends ‘CBS Evening News’ Contract


Norah O’Donnell and CBS have secured a deal to keep her at the network and as anchor of “CBS Evening News” through the 2024 election “and beyond,” an individual with knowledge confirmed to TheWrap.  CBS News has not officially confirmed.

Friday night, Puck’s Dylan Byers reported that O’Donnell contract was coming up for renewal and had been subjected to “endless industry gossip” That she would be leaving. “This news should put it to rest for a while, at least,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported.

“After plenty of rumors to the contrary, Norah O’Donnell is staying home, and set up to finally become the Peter Jennings of CBS—the star that the news division is built around, which in 2022, naturally, means some streaming stuff, too,” Byers said in his report.

When O’Donnell took over as anchor of “CBS Evening News” in July 2019, her debut drew 1.221 million viewers ages 25-54 — the key demographic for news programming — which was down 24% versus the same night in 2018. Her total-viewer decline was much less dramatic, down just 1%, which was also less of a decline than ABC and NBC experienced year to year.

Over the months that followed, ratings continued to nosedive with a double-digit drop, bringing in 5.232 million viewers, 17% less than her predecessor, Jeff Glor, brought in the year before and falling further behind its competitors.

After moving operations to Washington, D.C. in December 2019, ratings began to steadily improve week-to-week, averaging 6.811 million total viewers, 1.443 million of whom were in the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25-54.

No comments:

Post a Comment