CBS News is eyeing huge NBC star to take over from Gayle King on struggling morning show, TV insider claims
CBS News is reportedly eyeing a beloved host from a rival network to replace Gayle King.
The news giant is reportedly looking to hire Hoda Kotb, 61, for the role as the 70-year-old’s $15 million-a-year contract expires in 2026.
An insider told RadarOnline that ‘people with big salaries and small ratings are going to be mercilessly cut – and Gayle fits the bill in both categories.’
The source added: ‘[Editor-in-chief] Bari [Weiss] wants a huge name who brings warmth, credibility – and viewers. And Hoda checks every box.’
Kotb left the Today show in January to launch a wellness brand, Joy 101, which launched in mid-2025 to little fanfare.
Insiders reportedly said she is itching to return to the spotlight on TV.
The rumors come after veteran anchor John Dickerson left CBS in October after 16 years.
However, the insider, who is high up at CBS, said he did not leave the legacy media network willingly.
CBS News is eyeing beloved Today host, Hoda Kotb, to replace Gayle King faces ailing ratings, TV insider claimed
An insider told RadarOnline that ‘people with big salaries and small ratings are going to be mercilessly cut – and Gayle fits the bill in both categories’
‘Let’s be clear: he didn’t quit. He was pushed. That shows that nobody is safe,’ they told RadarOnline.
They also said the network is ‘done accepting third place’ and wants to bring in star power that will attract audiences and Kotb is the face of morning news.
‘Hoda is morning TV. She is the comfort America trusts with its coffee,’ the insider told the outlet.
Another way the network is reportedly trying to entice the journalist to make the jump is by making her central to CBS Mornings and the star of the show, rather than sharing the spotlight, the insider said.
However, despite the deep interest in her, CBS is not near closing a deal with her, the insider revealed.
CBS has been making major changes in the past year to boost its profits and to become the go-to televised news station in the US, with anti-woke Weiss at the helm.
In August, it was announced that CBS Evening News is set to experiment with yet another format change after adding another anchor to the mix back in January – a strategy widely panned as a ‘disaster’ at the time.
The strategy, insiders told Variety at the time, will see one of the anchors more frequently thrust into the field to report on major, breaking events.
Insiders said Kotb is itching to get back into the spotlight on TV again and CBS is considering it
The other will stay on-set to oversee the broadcast solo, as Norah O’Donnell, Katie Couric, Dan Rather, and Walter Cronkite did previously.
The show has lost more than 1.2 million viewers since straying from the format.
Weiss found herself under fire last month after she argued that the network would benefit from hearing ‘charismatic’ voices like disgraced lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
The 41-year-old, who took over as editor-in-chief at the Tiffany Network in October, made the claim at the Jewish Leadership Conference earlier last month.
She said that a recent debate between the 87-year-old former lawyer and former NRA spokesman Dana Loesch, hosted by Weiss’s anti-woke publication The Free Press, was emblematic of her vision for the future of CBS News.
‘Now these are people that have wildly different opinions on the Second Amendment, and yet showing that they could have good faith, very passionate, very charismatic disagreement and still like each other at the end of the day, we think it’s important,’ Weiss told the audience during the panel discussion.
The former New York Times opinion editor went on to call Dershowitz and Loesch ‘center left and center right,’ and claimed they represent the views of most Americans.
Podcasters such as Hasan Piker, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, on the other hand, ‘don’t represent our values and the world views of the vast majority of Americans,’ Weiss argued.
Pictured: King on CBS in 2024. The insider said the network is ‘done accepting third place’ and wants to bring in star power that will attract audiences and Kotb is the face of morning news
‘And so this is an opportunity to speak for the 75 percent, for the people that are on the center left, the center right,’ she continued.
‘That still believe passionately in the American project, that still believe in all of the things that everybody in this room believes in – which is liberty and freedom and individual responsibility.’
She went on to say that her goal at CBS is to ‘get back to that normalcy,’ as she acknowledged that ‘centrist news’ has failed ‘because it’s like trying to force feed spinach down someone’s throat.’
She added: ‘It’s felt like an absence of charisma and of identity, and as nostalgic as people may be for an era in which 30 million Americans watched Walter Cronkite every night and saw him as the voice of truth – and I understand why they’re nostalgic for that – we’re not going back to that.’
Instead, she said mainstream media can earn Americans’ trust back by ‘redrawing the lines of what falls into the 40-yard line of acceptable debate and acceptable politics and culture.
There are also rumors that the network plans on axing Maurice DuBois next and is eyeing CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Fox News’s Bret Baier as new recruits.
CBS attempted to poach the former, who he said he ‘wasn’t interested’ and ‘preferred his contributing role on 60 Minutes,’ WSJ reported.
And Weiss has had conversations mentioning Baier for the weeknight anchor position, Status first reported. He is currently under contract with Fox News through the end of 2028.
Landing either high-profile anchor would be extremely challenging even if they wanted to leave their positions.
Both Cooper and Baier make whopping salaries, with Baier raking in $14 million annually and Cooper bringing in a stunning $18 million.
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