Gayle King might be the next to end her tenure as a reliable face of CBS News. Per Variety, King may step down from her throne atop CBS Mornings when her contract expires in May of next year. Though those within Paramount Skydance hope to move her to a different role within the company, the news is part of a recent trend of talent rushing for the door amid a chaotic regime change that ended with Bari Weiss in charge of “doing the fucking news.” In a statement to Variety, a CBS spokesperson said negotiations haven’t begun yet, but they’re looking forward to them. “There have been no discussions with Gayle about her contract that runs through May 2026,” they said. “She’s a truly valued part of CBS, and we look forward to engaging with her about the future.”
While King remains at the company and might end up producing her own content under a different CBS shingle, Paramount Skydance is losing people left and right. And we’re not even including the 2,000 or so employees that have been laid off or will be laid off in the coming months. Perhaps unsurprisingly, among those hardest hit in the layoffs were staffers at CBS Mornings, which King does not host. Earlier this year, as it was attempting to secure the merger between Skydance and Paramount, CBS announced it would be canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, too. The network claimed it canceled its own late-night talk show institution that had been running for more than 30 years for “purely finanical” reasons that seemingly convinced no one, specifically, the WGA and members of the Senate, who suspected Skydance Media of “bribery in plain sight.” Earlier this week, longtime CBS Evening News anchor John Dickerson “decided to step away” from the company after 16 years. Dickerson hosted several of the network’s flagship news shows, including Face The Nation and CBS Mornings, which he left in 2019. Also, this week—again, aside from the thousand layoffs—Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan announced he was leaving the fold and heading to NBCUniversal—though not before penning a Call Of Duty adaptation.
