Katie Couric, who joined Yahoo a year and a half ago in a groundbreaking deal, is renewing her contract, her spokesman confirmed Friday evening.
Couric will remain the global news anchor for Yahoo (YHOO), conducting high-profile interviews like the one she had with Senator Lindsey Graham earlier on Friday.
The renewed contract symbolizes Yahoo's continuing ambition to have news video that distinguishes its site. Yahoo News is, by many measures, already the country's most popular news web site, but it relies heavily on news wire copy and video from elsewhere.
Couric's spokesman declined to comment on the particulars of the contract.
But Re/code and The New York Post reported that she'll be paid roughly $10 million annually, up from $6 million before. The Post noted that "the new deal contains a few targets that need to be hit for her to reach the 10-figure pay package."
It's hard to imagine Yahoo recouping a ten-figure-a-year investment in any host, since, unlike television networks which have both advertising and subscription revenue streams, it only has advertising revenue.
Yahoo declined to confirm the status of the new contract: "We can confirm that Katie continues to be Yahoo's global news anchor. We don't comment on rumors, speculation or personnel matters."
But Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer spoke about the broader value of Couric's contributions in an interview with Fortune last month.
She said the initial hiring of Couric was less about ad revenue and "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."
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Couric signed on with Yahoo at the end of 2013 as she was winding down her syndicated daytime talk show.
Her renewed contract may include the same provision she had before, one that left the door open to other work on television and in film. Couric has been a producer of multiple documentaries.
But the renewal would seem to put to rest the previous speculation that Couric might seek to rejoin Andy Lack at NBC News.
(Couric was the co-host of the "Today" show in the late 1990s while Lack was the president of the news division. He is now back in charge as the chairman of NBC News.)
Yahoo recently expanded its partnership with NBC's chief television rival, ABC, and some of Couric's interviews will continue to be shown on ABC.
