Couric’s Rocky Path to a Likely Parting With CBS

Katie Couric and CBS are now negotiating how and when to end her five-year run as anchor, one marked by early criticism, later journalistic successes and disappointing ratings over all.

Couric is pursuing the idea of her own syndicated talk show, possibly with her former “Today” show co-host, Matt Lauer. Any such move would be intensely complicated. Lauer’s contract extends to the end of 2012, while the new show would be expected to start in September. And NBC can be counted on to make perhaps the biggest offer in television news history to keep him at “Today.”

For Katie Couric, the offer in 2006 to become the anchor of “CBS Evening News” came with another incentive, one she prized almost as highly, according to two of her friends: the chance to report for “60 Minutes,” the newsmagazine that for Ms. Couric stood for the kind of serious journalism she had always aspired to. Regular appearances on “60 Minutes” were written into her $15 million-a-year contract with CBS, but once she arrived at the network, she found a chilly reception from some of the staff members at the venerable program. Some of Ms. Couric’s associates said that the chilliness seemed to stem from the top, the show’s executive producer, Jeff Fager. Her appearances on the show have been fewer than she hoped for — averaging not even five a year. Even after the show won an Emmy for her interview with the airline pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, Couric’s visibility on the program never increased. In February, when Fager was named chairman of CBS News, his tepid response to the hugely public question of whether she might continue as anchor (Fager said he hadn't thought about it yet) sent an additional signal to Ms. Couric and her representatives: it was time to move on.