Today, Howard Kurtz provides some firmness to the rumors that CBS News is about to make Katie Couric its new anchor:

NBC executives expect Katie Couric to leave the “Today” show and accept an offer from CBS to become the first woman to anchor a network evening newscast on her own, with an announcement of her departure likely as early as this week, according to well-placed sources at both networks and others familiar with the negotiations.
The tentative plan is for a two-step process in which Couric first announces her departure from NBC, which would like to give her a warm send-off after a decade in which she helped make “Today” the top-rated morning program. Meredith Vieira, co-host of ABC’s “The View” and host of the syndicated “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” has been offered the job of replacing Couric and is seriously considering it, some of these sources say.
An announcement that Couric will succeed Bob Schieffer as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” will come later, in part because the final contractual details — which will include a regular spot on “60 Minutes” — have not been worked out, the sources say. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the contract talks have not been completed.

CBS News ratings are up under current anchor Bob Schieffer. Schieffer’s politics are probably more liberal than mine, but at least he’s serious about the news. His boss, apparently, is not.

Late last year, CBS president Les Moonves told The New York Times magazine:

On the one hand, we could have a newscast like ‘The Big Breakfast’ in England, where women give the news in lingerie. Or there’s ‘Naked News,’ which is on cable in England. I saw a clip of it. It’s a woman giving the news as she’s getting undressed. And then, on the other hand, you could have two boring people behind a desk. Our newscast has to be somewhere in between.”

I suppose we should be thankful that he’s hiring Couric instead of having Schieffer deliver the news in a teddy.

ALSO: TVNewser has a “Couric Watch” thread with the latest news. Newsbusters has an archive of Couric-related material.

UPDATE: It’s confirmed. How depressing.