Norah O’Donnell Exits Ahead of Hard Pivot for ‘CBS Evening News’

Norah O’Donnell’s exit from “CBS Night Information” Thursday night time wasn’t what viewers may need anticipated. And the successor program that CBS intends to air as an alternative on Monday may have the same high quality.

O’Donnell bid farewell to viewers of the long-running broadcast after a shock taped cameo from Oprah Winfrey which celebrated the anchor and confirmed many highlights of her tenure. O’Donnell thanked the viewers for welcoming “arduous information with coronary heart into your houses,” and was noticed being surrounded by colleagues and household because the present’s credit started to roll. Coming Monday: a very overhauled version of this system that’s taking pains to interrupt many visible ties to the times when Walter Cronkite and Dan Fairly instructed the nation what was most essential on the finish of their day.

CBS will launch a brand new “Night Information” that depends on a bunch of co-anchors, reasonably than a single individual. One of many objectives is to imbue the nationwide program with the look and sensibility of the local-news applications that viewers of CBS stations see throughout the U.S., a nod to the truth that native broadcasts are likely to nonetheless have traction amongst audiences who’re extra vulnerable to get their headlines and knowledge from streaming and digital sources than up to now.

Already, the similarities are evident. The graphics used on “CBS Night Information” Thursday night regarded similar to these on show for the 6 p.m. broadcast of the native information from New York’s WCBS that preceded O’Donnell’s final spherical. Throughout O’Donnell’s final broadcast, one phase centered on WCBS meteorologist Lonnie Quinn, who’s slated to have a major function within the new version of this system.

“CBS Night Information” has been caught in third place behind ABC’s “World Information Tonight” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly Information” for years. O’Donnell didn’t change that, however give her this: The present final week gained a mean of 5.037 million viewers — just a little greater than this system’s norm — amid large modifications within the nation. And he or she’s by no means had her journalism questioned or a narrative that generated criticism of being unfair or inaccurate — regardless of a number of robust items that investigated sexual assault within the army. She additionally secured an interview with Pope Francis, not the simplest “get” within the enterprise.

In her place, CBS will launch an “Night Information” led by John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, with Quinn including climate and Margaret Brennan including to her duties as moderator of “Face The Nation” available to supply perspective on Washington and politics. The brand new format will assist accomplish a aim touted for months by senior CBS and Paramount World executives: bringing collectively the information groups of CBS Information and the CBS native stations. The maneuver takes place as Paramount is underneath excessive strain to chop thousands and thousands of {dollars} from its working prices. Extra are anticipated to happen as soon as the corporate is acquired by Skydance Media, anticipated, at current, sooner or later later this 12 months. Viewers of the brand new “Night Information” most likely gained’t see Dickerson and DuBois out within the discipline all that a lot, an obligation that can more and more be dealt with by a correspondent who covers the world wherein an essential information story breaks.

Whether or not audiences will flock to it stays anybody’s guess.

The attraction of the night information on any community comes from a need for a dependable wrap of the day’s most essential occasions and tales. The exhibits lack the hot-talk alarm of their cable-news counterparts, although lately, “Breaking Information” chyrons have crept into the graphics combine with rising frequency. The exhibits present a steady haven for pharmaceutical advertisers, nonetheless one of many greatest supporters of linear TV. To make certain, the evening-news doesn’t lure younger viewers like a “Squid Sport” binge on Netflix would possibly, however they nonetheless corral thousands and thousands of individuals over the course of a single half hour. And perhaps there’s a thrill of some type from seeing a single host juggle politics, tradition, tales from abroad and just a little bit of popular culture all in lower than thirty minutes.

The chance for CBS subsequent week is that the viewers who tuned in to O’Donnell — and Jeff Glor, Anthony Mason, Scott Pelley, Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer earlier than her — will anticipate extra of the identical, not one thing completely different.

O’Donnell has extra work to do. She is going to tackle senior correspondent duties that can have her working for giant interviews and doing enterprise work that can land throughout CBS Information platforms. At a second when most of the nation’s large TV-news mainstays are underneath rising monetary strain — each CNN and NBC Information unveiled layoffs Thursday — she could have landed the higher job.