This Could Be the Least Surprising News Ever

The sky is blue. Brownies are delicious. Kittens are the meaning of life. And Katie Couric's Katie will end. Yes, this can be filed under news we've long known, but ABC officially announced Thursday that Couric's talk show would end after just two seasons on the air. According to a statement released by Couric and ABC:

While production will continue on “Katie” through June 2014, we’ve mutually agreed that there will not be a third season of the show. We’re very proud of everyone’s contributions to making Katie the #1 new syndicated talk show of 2012-2013, and we look forward to the rest of the season.

Indeed, the series was a hit during its first season on the air — though Katie hit television the same year as several other high-profile hosts (including Ricki Lake, Jeff Probst, and Steve Harvey), the former Today host's series easily beat the competition. In the years since, however, Katie began to flounder, and, as of 2014, Steve Harvey will be the only new talk series from the 2012 season to survive.

So what gave? Reports claimed that Katie's budget and lack of attention to stay-at-home-moms, the premiere audience for a talk show, was ultimately its downfall. As one employee told The Hollywood Reporter about Couric's hard-hitting segments, which ranged from the HPV vaccine to trans youth:

She has a complete and utter disdain for the audience she needs to appeal to. In her mind, the Today show was [the model] — professional women getting ready for work. Anyone home after 9 o'clock are people she has no interest in appealing to. But she also loved the $20 million paycheck.

Of course, that's only one opinion. Another source close to Couric told THR, "It is because of Katie's great respect for her audience that she introduces fresh perspectives and substantive material into the show."

And she's hoping to introduce those perspectives after her Katie run ends in 2014. Nearly one month ago, Yahoo announced it had hired Couric to head up its video news coverage (making the end of Katie hardly a secret). As Couric said in a statement following the news, "Joining Yahoo offers a tremendous opportunity to reach people all around the world in the way that they're using and consuming media today."

At least, it will give her a tremendous opportunity to avoid soft-ball interviews like these: