Norah O’Donnell will leave the anchor chair at last-place “CBS Evening News” after the 2024 presidential election amid expected cost-cutting by parent Paramount, the network said Tuesday.
O’Donnell, who took over the seat in 2019, re-upped her contract with CBS News in 2022 — despite speculation that the she would be replaced.
Her salary, however, was rumored to be substantially slashed from the $8 million a year when she was hired, as The Post exclusively reported.
The show’s ratings have also been in the tank during her five years in the anchor seat — plunging roughly 25% and cementing the newscast firmly behind rivals at ABC and NBC.
“She deserves to lose her job,” one CBS insider told The Post after hearing about her exit.
O’Donnell, 50, will move to a new role as senior correspondent where she will focus on bigger interviews and reporting for other shows including “60 Minutes, according to CBS.
“She’s been put out to TV journalism pasture,” the source said.
“It’s like being sent to the graveyard of special projects.”
O’Donnell’s exit comes a month after controversial CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews stepped down — as CBS NEWS CEO Wendy McMahon cuts costs and reshapes the network.
Paramount Global is expected to slash $500 million ahead of its likely merger with Skydance Media.
CBS News plans to have rotating anchors after O’Donnell departs in November, according to Puck News, which first reported her exit.
O’Donnell has 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.
She scored some big interviews over the years, but the “Evening News” 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.
“CBS is so irrelevant if you’re a journalist. Nobody is watching. Sometimes you feel like you’re in the witness protection program,” the network insider said.
ABC’s “World News Tonight,” the top-rated show, and NBC’s “Nightly News” also have seen their audience shrivel substantially in recent years, often by double-digit percentages quarter to quarter.
O’Donnell thanked staffers after announcing her departure.
“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,” she said in a note.
McMahon lauded O’Donnell for her newsgathering skills.
“Norah’s superpower is her ability to secure and then masterfully deliver unparalleled interviews and stories that set the news cycle and capture the cultural zeitgeist,” McMahon said.
“Norah’s work here is legendary, and she has several major interviews in the works that will be equally memorable and momentous.”
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