JUST IN: CBS Brings Norah O’Donnell Back to ‘CBS Mornings’

Jason Mendez/Invision/AP photo

Norah O’Donnell will be returning to her previous role on CBS Mornings, a move the network hopes will help boost ratings, Variety reported on Thursday.

O’Donnell had co-anchored CBS Mornings from 2012 until 2019, when she was tapped to anchor CBS Evening News until Jan. 2025. After the Paramount Skydance merger, there was some speculation that new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss would bring O’Donnell back to the evening anchor chair, but Tony Dokupil was drafted from the morning show instead.

In the interim, O’Donnell has continued to work as a senior correspondent for the network. She has had a number of notable reports for 60 Minutes, including landing an interview with President Donald Trump in October 2025 that scored high ratings and generated a slew of headlines.

Now, she will join the Mornings team alongside Gayle King and Nate Burleson.

CBS News executives are hopeful that O’Donnell will give a boost to CBS Mornings’ ratings, as the show has lingered in third place behind NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America, slipping even further behind recently, Variety’s Brian Steinberg noted:

Season to date as of August 30, the overall “CBS Mornings” has fallen about 9% from the year-earlier period to approximately 1.7 million, according to figures from Nielsen. Both “Today” and “GMA” enjoy viewership of just under 3 million and have seen their audiences increase. The standing of “CBS Mornings” among people between 25 and 54, the crowd most coveted by advertisers in news programming, is eroding noticeably — down 20% from a year ago, to about 278,000 viewers. “Today” is off 2% to 612,000 while “GMA” is up 2% to 478,000.

“We believe there is a lot of life left in morning television, and therefore we are putting our best people on the field,” CBS News President Tom Cibrowski told Variety. “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.”

Cibrowski added that CBS Mornings planned to incorporate more live discussions about current news topics, saying that the show “want[s] to be, first and foremost, informative and helpful to the core audience that’s watching morning television.”

Jon Tower, the producer leading CBS Mornings, sent a memo to the show’s staff Wednesday morning “welcoming Norah home,” according to a CBS News source that provided the text of the memo to Mediaite:

To My Mornings Family –

It’s my turn to deliver some exciting breaking news — Norah O’Donnell is joining Gayle and Nate as an anchor of CBS Mornings.

This is a homecoming for Norah. As we all know, for seven years, Norah helped lead CBS This Morning alongside Gayle, creating one of the most memorable partnerships in the history of morning news. They have a friendship and chemistry that extends beyond the studio. They know each other, respect each other, and — maybe most importantly — genuinely enjoy each other. To put it simply, I can’t think of a team I’d rather watch navigate the news than Gayle, Nate and Norah.

At CBS News, Norah needs no introduction — but I’ll remind you about her accomplishments anyway.

Norah has spent the last decade and a half covering the biggest stories. She’s sat down with every living president of the United States, and spoke exclusively with Pope Francis for a first-of-its-kind interview. Norah is a 60 Minutes Correspondent, a New York Times bestselling author, the host of a women’s health podcast, and the former Anchor and Managing Editor of the CBS Evening News.

All of that experience and energy makes her a perfect match for Gayle and Nate. Gayle is one of the hardest-working and best interviewers in the business, with an unmatched ability to connect with audiences on all topics. And Nate brings curiosity, warmth, spontaneity and a perspective that can take a conversation in a direction none of us expected.

Put the three of them together, and we have something very special. Add in Vlad Duthiers, Kelly O’Grady, and Adriana Diaz, and we have the strongest cast in morning news.

I had the privilege of producing Gayle and Norah together years ago, and I saw firsthand the magic that happens when the two of them sit across from someone — or simply start talking to each other. I loved being part of it then, and I’m incredibly excited to have the opportunity to do it again.

We have an extraordinary team behind the cameras, an extraordinary team in front of them, and an opportunity to build the smartest morning show on TV.

Please join me in welcoming Norah home.

Jon

A network source told Mediaite that King was an active “full-time partner” in the process of securing a third co-host to join her and Burleson on the morning show, and the two have been friends for 15 years. O’Donnell’s contributions would be especially appreciated as the show’s political coverage ramps up with the upcoming midterm elections, the source said.

“This move made sense,” the source continued. “We want our audience to wake up with the very best CBS News has to offer, to cover a wide range of news in the morning — and that’s Gayle, Nate, and Norah,” plus “a stellar cast of Mornings talent with Vlad, Adriana, and Kelly that our audience knows and loves.”

The source added that CBS Mornings was planning to add several new contributors in the fall, and expressed that the network was “excited” to have “our full A-Team” on the morning desk starting next Tuesday, Sept. 8.

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