Couric announced on Wednesday's Today that she will leave the show in May and will take over the anchor duties for CBS' Evening News in September. In addition to becoming the first permanent solo female anchor of a network evening newscast (say that five times fast) — there are rumours that ABC's Diane Sawyer might try to beat her to the punch by taking over World News Tonight — Couric will also become part of the 60 Minutes team.

Couric's CBS salary is estimated to be around $15 million a year, the same as her past NBC deal, but with the priceless perk of no longer having to wake up at 4 a.m. on weekdays.

Still, much of the discussion revolving around her move is her credibility as a news anchor and whether viewers will accept a female anchor. Why is her gender even an issue? I don't know, maybe I don't think the same way news viewers, a majority of which are over 55 years of age, do. But as for the credibility issue, admittedly, Couric is a new kind of TV news star, one adept at doing both cooking segments and hard news. That's not a diss, it's a rare news personality that can pull this off and still maintain their authority. I think even the venerable Diane Sawyer has lost some of her cred attempting the same balance on ABC's Good Morning America.

Of course, now that Couric's made her move official, the buzz is that The View's Meredith Viera will succeed her. The timing's good, as Viera's contract ends this summer, and The New York Times reports that a contract between Viera and NBC could be finalized by the end of the week. It's a safe move for NBC, and it's worth noting that Viera was a serious broadcast journalist with CBS and ABC before she became a chat and game show host. My preference would have been to see someone from NBC take the job, like Today news reader Ann Curry or Today Weekend anchor Campbell Brown — Brown in particular will probably move on to greener pastures as her contract's ending this year too, possibly to Fox News, where her husband is a contributor.

But if we're talking about credibility, Paul Krassner put a blunt spin on Viera's merits as a Today anchor in The Huffington Post:

"I doubt the kids really care who the anchor is, unless maybe it's Keith Olberman on MSNBC. Then there's Meredith Viera proving that, whether you're hosting Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or confessing on The View that you like to f— your husband while he's sleeping, you still won't lose your credibility as a journalist. And now she's saying, 'I want to be a multi-millionaire.'"

Well, uh, there you go.

Robert Ballantyne is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Popjournalism. You can comment on this story by visiting The Popjournalism Blog here.