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Katie Couric is re-upping her news deal with Yahoo, which sources said will raise her annual package there from upward of $6 million to $10 million.
A spokesman for Couric confirmed that the well-known news anchor would be continuing with Yahoo, but neither he nor Yahoo would give additional specifics about the deal or about Couric’s compensation.
But it is a big number for an Internet news anchor, for sure, rivaling money paid to television stars (as Couric once was for NBC and other major networks).
Couric signed with the Silicon Valley Internet giant in late 2013 to become its global news anchor to launch an interview show to give the company a big-media sheen. It has been an effort by CEO Marissa Mayer to convince advertisers that Yahoo is a media destination.
Couric’s efforts have focused on exclusive interviews with a range of high-profile celebrities, business execs and more, prominently featured on Yahoo’s heavily trafficked main page. She recently interviewed Democratic candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, and also scored one of first interviews with Ellen Pao after she lost her famous gender discrimination lawsuit.
I like what Couric has been doing a lot and it’s certainly groundbreaking for a television anchor of her fame to move to the Internet, although some inside Yahoo have questioned this and other high-profile media hires made over the last two years. The issue: Should Yahoo be a platform to showcase high-value content or should it aggregate and personalize?
In a May interview with Fortune, Mayer called the Couric hire “a very profitable and good investment.”
She added: “But I will say, to me it was really more about raising that journalistic standard, getting our name out there as people who really want to participate in news and participate in the dialogue in a different way than just republishing content.”
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
