After five years of hosting the Evening News on CBS, Katie Couric has made it official by announcing that she is stepping down from her anchor chair.Couric never really found a grove with viewers and ratings for her show declined each year.
The network has not announced her last show but is moving to hire Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes" as her successor as early as next week.
Couric’s contract expires June 4 and she says she would like to create and host her own talk show by next year.
Couric's news broadcast was seen nightly by about 6.3 million viewers, the Nielsen Co. said. That's only two-thirds of the usual viewership of 9.8 million for Brian Williams and NBC's "Nightly News." ABC's "World News" with Diane Sawyer gets about 8.7 million viewers.
Couric has released the following statement,
“I’m really proud of the talented team on the CBS Evening News and the award-winning work we’ve been able to do in the past five years in addition to the reporting I’ve done for 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning.
In making the decision to move on, I know the Evening News will be in great hands, but I am excited about the future.”
