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 Monday's announcement confirms recent published reports that Couric
is hoping to attract more viewers on the Internet after spending the
past 22 years working as a talk-show host and news anchor at NBC,
CBS and ABC.
"I am particularly excited about hopefully attracting other people
to this platform and venture," Couric said in an interview with The
Associated Press. "We are in a major, transformative time in terms
of media in this country."
Couric's hiring is the latest coup for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer as
she brings in well-known journalists in an effort to create
compelling content that will attract more people to the company's
online services. In the past month, Yahoo has also lured away
technology columnist David Pogue and political reporter Matt Bai
from The New York Times.
Financial terms of Couric's contract with Yahoo weren't disclosed.
She also declined to say how many more reporters will be added to
her team at Yahoo.
Couric, 56, will continue to host her daytime talk show, "Katie," on
ABC even after she becomes Yahoo's "global anchor" beginning early
next year. She described her now role at Yahoo as a "work in
progress."
"I will be involved in developing a lot of concepts, but not
necessarily doing everything," Couric said. "I will be doing
interviews, but not on a daily basis. Probably monthly at this
point."
The Yahoo job appealed to Couric because it will give her an outlet
to delve into breaking developments around the world that she
regularly covered as the anchor of CBS' evening news from 2006
through 2011.
Mayer, since leaving Google Inc. to become Yahoo's CEO 16 months
ago, has been trying to make Yahoo's services more alluring so
people will visit them on a regular basis and dwell for longer
periods. In doing so, she is hoping Yahoo will be able to sell more
digital ads and boost the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's revenue,
which has been lagging the overall growth of Internet marketing for
years.
"News is a definitive daily habit for our users, and Katie will work
with our talented editorial team to pioneer a new chapter of digital
journalism," Mayer said.
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Yahoo already operates the most popular online news section in the
U.S. with 81.5 million visitors in October, according to the most
recent data from the research firm comScore Inc. The audience's size
is roughly the same as when Mayer became Yahoo's CEO. CNN ranks
second in online news in the U.S., with 70 million visitors.
Couric first became a household name as a co-host of the "Today"
show on NBC from 1991 until she left to join CBS in 2006.
It remains unclear whether Couric's current talk show on ABC will be
renewed after its run ends in May. Her show is drawing an average
2.17 million viewers so far this season, slightly below an average
of 2.26 million viewers attracted during its inaugural season in
2012, according to the ratings firm Nielsen.
The Walt Disney Co., which produces the show, and the owned and
operated stations that air the program haven't decided whether to
bring back the show for a third season, said Bill Carroll, an expert
on the syndication market for Katz Media. Couric also said she is
trying to figure out whether she still wants to do the talk show.
[Associated
Press; MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer]
AP Television Writer
David Bauder in New York contributed to this story.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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