Norah O'Donnell To Exit Anchor Role

Norah O’Donnell is leaving the anchor chair at last-place “CBS Evening News” after the 2024 presidential election, the network said Tuesday.

O’Donnell re-upped her contract with CBS News in 2022, despite speculation that the anchor — whose salary was rumored to be substantially slashed from $8 million — would be replaced.

According to CBS, O’Donnell will move to a new role as senior correspondent where she will focus on bigger interviews and reporting.

“Together, our team has won Emmy, Murrow, and DuPont awards. We managed to anchor in-studio through COVID; we took the broadcast on the road from aircraft carriers to the Middle East, and around the world. We were privileged to conduct a historic interview with Pope Francis,” O’Donnell said in a note sent to staffers Tuesday.

A rep for CBS News said her replacement will be named in the coming months.

Nora O'Donnell

The NY Post reports the veteran journalist took over the struggling newscast in 2019 and had a tumultuous ride as the latest journalist in the famed Tiffany Network’s stable of anchors that included Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather.

Despite some big interviews, O’Donnell’s “Evening News” brought in averaged just 4.4 million total viewers in the most recent quarter and less than 600,000 in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic.

Like its rivals at ABC and NBC, CBS News has seen its audience shrivel substantially in recent years, often by double-digit percentages quarter to quarter.

O’Donnell’s exit is the latest major change at CBS News under CBS News president Wendy McMahon, who is focused on cutting costs and reshaping the network.

CBS-parent Paramount Global is expected to slash $500 million ahead of its merger with Skydance Media.

Last month, McMahon announced that controversial CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews was stepping down after less than a year in the role.

The shake-up comes as McMahon is in the process of centralizing the news operations, which includes relying more on local news reporters to cover events rather than sending correspondents from the network’s news division.