Norah O’Donnell is back in a place where many people feel she always belonged — as one of the top anchors of CBS News.
On Tuesday, A.M. viewers will see O’Donnell alongside Gayle King and Nate Burleson on “CBS Mornings,” in a new trio that CBS News executives believe will stabilize the program’s ratings and give viewers more of a reason to watch. O’Donnell is rejoining CBS’s morning program after leaving in May of 2019 to take up a role as the anchor of “CBS Evening News.”
“We believe there is a lot of life left in morning television, and therefore we are putting our best people on the field,” says Tom Cibrowski, the president of CBS News, in an interview. “People have very serious issues to deal with every day in their lives, and between Norah, Gayle and Nate, the three of them bring relatability, credibility, experience and knowledge, and they are incredibly familiar to CBS viewers, which is important.”
O’Donnell previously co-anchored the CBS morning program with King and Charlie Rose, starting in 2012, and helped the show gain the kind of traction CBS has not often seen in that time period. She returns at a crucial moment. CBS has long come in third behind NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” but in recent months has seen its standing in early news slip further.
