According to pretty much everyone you ask, Katie Couric is on her way out as host of the CBS Evening News. Well, everyone but CBS that is. The network – and Couric’s people – are all insisting that everything is well and good. However both traditional and internet media have been buzzing all week that Couric will be let go right after the inauguration in January – if not sooner. Everyone seems to have their own thoughts on why the Evening News has had such lackluster ratings under Couric – but no matter what your theory, one thing is undeniable – they’re not getting any better.

Now names of potential replacements are being bandied about – and the name at the top of the list is CNN’s silver fox, Anderson Cooper. In fact it seems CNN and CBS might be considering a trade of sorts. Apparently that happens in both sports and evening news. Who knew?

Katie Couric for Anderson Cooper? A blockbuster trade of TV superstars was floated Friday by TV insiders as a solution to CBS’ Couric problem. Cooper, CNN’s prematurely gray prince of cable TV, would replace Couric as the anchor of CBS’ “Evening News.” He already is a contributor to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” they said.

And CNN will eventually need to replace the iconic Larry King, who is 74. Why not Couric, who remains a marquee talent despite being a $75 million flop for CBS, the insiders said. “Take Katie off the ‘Evening News,’ let her do Larry King, and then let Cooper anchor,” one network source said.

Couric, 51, has said only that she was “working hard and having fun” since word broke this week that she was heading for a humiliating exit after just 18 months as anchor. During her tenure, CBS has been mired in third place in the ratings and, as a result, cost the network millions in lost revenue.

[From the New York Daily News]

NBC’s David Gregory is also being considered as a possible replacement anchor, and both Harry Smith and Bob Schieffer are potential interim candidates if Couric bolts before the inauguration. And considering just how much gossip is being e-whispered, I couldn’t blame anyone for wanting to sit through another nine months of speculation.

Somehow Katie’s style does seem to make more sense in an in-depth interview show. And it sure as hell is time for Larry King to retire. Maybe she could bring a little respectability back to that show. And Anderson Cooper shines wherever he is. Maybe it’s the gray hair… maybe the blue eyes… or the blue shirts that accent the blue eyes just so… but I digress. This is about important newsy things. Anderson could bring much-needed viewers back to the CBS Evening News. And my cable service is kind of spotty, so I’d really prefer he move to network television. And that’s a damn good reason right there.

Remember when that story came out that there were nude pictures of Demi Moore being held for ransom by a Parisian cab driver after Ashton Kutcher supposedly left his cell phone in a cab? We never saw those photos, so maybe that story was bullshit, or perhaps Ashton payed dearly to protect his wife’s image. (snicker)

The latest issue of our favorite tabloid, The National Enquirer, has a story claiming that there are even more cringe-worthy photos possibly coming. 50 year-old gummy-grinning newscaster Katie Couric is being blackmailed for $1 million over photos that her 33 year-old boytoy, Brooks Perlin, left at a party. Katie’s camp claims they’re just friendly vacation snaps, but why would someone try to extort a million bucks out of Katie for some tame personal pictures?

“Intimate” snapshots of Katie Couric romping with her hot young sweetie Brooks Perlin have been discovered in a camera that Katie left behind at a party, insiders say.

Now sources say the pictures are in the hands of a person who’s demanding a whopping $1 million to return them… !

“The personal photos have been described as ‘intimate’ - and Katie obviously never wants them to be made public,” a source told The Enqurier.

“While there are no nude photos of Katie, she looks anything but the anchor of a network newscast in them. They’re candid pictures taken on trips and dates with Brooks.

“If these photos make their way to web sites and blogs, it could be very embarrassing.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, December 3, 2007]

So is Katie wasted in these pictures? Is she wearing lingerie or posing seductively or something? I want to know!

The Enquirer broke the story of the Vanessa Hudgens nude pictures before they got out, so they could be on the money with this one.

Katie has been dating triathlete Brooks Perlin for a little over a year. He has his own business selling green materials to construction companies and lives in Connecticut. The NY Post called him a “serial dater of older women” and claim he’s a creep who checks out every woman who walks by.

Katie has said to have had rage problems in her post at CBS, and she’s said to go off on her co-workers and staff. An article this spring suggested she was boozing to cope with stress.

I hope this story is true and that these photos come out soon. It’s about time Katie Couric had a scandal.

Katie is shown on 10/16/07 at a Project ALS event, thanks to PRPhotos.

New York magazine has a great interview with Katie Couric this week. In it, she talks about her decision to leave the “Today” show for CBS news. Everyone in the media had her under a microscope; Vanity Fair even did a photo montage of the different outfits she wore, critiquing each one. Couric acknowledged, “’I’ve gone through a bit of a feeding frenzy and there’s blood in the water and I’ve got some vulnerabilities.’” It seems other people really didn’t think she’d make it.

“CBS chief Leslie Moonves promised Couric that together they would shake up the show’s formulaic format. But, so far, putting Couric’s morning “Today” show touch on the nightly newscast has been a bust. Couric came under intense scrutiny from the moment her deal was announced: Some CBS staffers didn’t think she was serious enough for the job. Even former anchor Dan Rather piled on, saying CBS was “dumbing down” and “tarting up” the broadcast.”

[From the Daily News]

Ultimately, it’s clear that Couric is tough enough to withstand the initial pressure. With any job, there is a learning curve. Now imagine how stressful that would be when you have millions of people watching you… assuming you’ll fail? Katie spent 17 years on the Today show. That’s got to be hard to adjust to such a dramatically different environment. I don’t see how CBS could expect great ratings at first; not only did Couric have to adjust to being more serious, but they were also trying to revamp their news format and make it a bit less stodgy. Thus there was change all around, and that can be hard for people to adapt to right away.

Katie points out that it was clear to here that people were (and maybe still are) rooting for her to fail.

“’I think that bugs people even more that I’m not a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown,’ she told the mag. ‘It’s probably disappointing to some people. Because in the arc of the story, that’s what they want to see.’”

[From the Daily News]

Personally I appreciate her honesty. I don’t think there’s much value to pretending everything is fine when it’s not; and there were so many incredibly vocal critics talking about how poorly the show was doing that she really didn’t have anything to lose by acknowledging that it’s all a work in process. I hope the show ultimately gets better. I don’t think there’s wrong with making the news easier to understand if that’s what some people need to stay informed.

Katie Couric is shown in the header image at a Museum of Television and Radio event honoring Leslie Moonves and Jerry Bruckheimer on 10/30/06.

People is covering Katie Couric’s six month romance with a 33 year-old triathlete who is 17 years her junior. They have a typical feel-good story about how they met at a cancer benefit last September and have a “drama free relationship.” Brooks Perlin he had a privileged upbringing in Connecticut and is now an entrepreneur with his own business selling green materials to construction companies.

I wasn’t going to cover this, but The Enquirer has a three page story about Katie’s ongoing problems as the ratings for The CBS Evening News tank under her anchorship. They say her new hot relationship is a bright spot in her otherwise troubled life and that she went into a jealous rage after boozing heavily.

The perky news anchor has a tendency to go off on minions and co-workers, according to The Enquirer, which says that people who work with her fear her temper.

Katie is bragging to pals about the hot sex she’s having with the athletic Perlin, but she’s jealous when other women talk to her man, is really messed up over her career and just can’t keep it together:

“Katie loves to describe all the sex they are having, but she’s clearly conscious of the age difference between them. She keeps asking people if they think Brooks looks older than he really is.” [revealed a source close to her]

“There was an incident after Brooks accompanied Katie to one of the Super Bowl parties thrown by CBS.”

Katie had been boozing, and she took a limo back to the… hotel where she was staying.

“But when she got up to her floor, she was a mess. She was crying so hard that her mascara was streaming down her face.

“She began banging on the room of another staffer, asking to be let in so she could talk.

“It turned out Kate was upset that Brooks hadn’t come back to the hotel with her. They had separate rooms, but Katie had no intention of sleeping by herself.

“She claimed Brooks had spent too much time talk to her female colleagues at the party.

“Katie raged: ‘I left him talking to all those women, and he didn’t come back with me. I’m going to cancel his room! He can forget about seeing me!’”…

The next day Katie calmed down and she and Brooks were seen walking around the hotel today. And now Katie is even more determined to make the relationship work. She even dumped her previous steady beau, billionaire beer baron Jimmy Reyes, for Brooks.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, April 23, 2007]

The article goes on to say that Katie was heartbroken to learn that her sister in law Marilyn had died from blood poisoning. Katie was on vacation in Mexico with Perlin and his family when she learned the sad news. Her husband Jay Monahan passed away from colon cancer in 1998.

The Enquirer claims that Katie is all over the place since she learned that her sister in law died. She also can’t cope with the stress from her job. According to the rag, she suffers severe mood swings, and can “fly into a rage… over the smallest of things.” Her co-workers are said to have a bet about who she’ll go off on next.

The ratings are tanking for CBS News since she became anchor, but they’re also down at The Today Show since she left. If her latest job doesn’t work out, Katie has her sights on an interview talk show like Oprah’s.

Whatever is going with Katie, who can blame her for having trouble coping after her sister-in-law died? I kind of like to imagine her being this tyrannical diva at work and I hope that part is true. Good for her for bagging a hot young guy. It might not last though, The Post reports that Perlin is a serial dater of older women, and that he’s worked for “three Connecticut-based hedge funds in the past five years and has been out of work since September.” They also say he is one of those creeps who checks out every woman that walks by, according to two different sources.