Abby Phillip has renewed her contract with and will stay at the network for several more years, keeping one of its best-known anchors in place as the company heads toward a merger with Paramount Skydance. A source said the deal was recently extended, though the length of the new term was not disclosed.
Phillip, 37, joined in 2017 and now anchors NewsNight, hosts Table for Five on Saturday mornings and leads the streaming series Confessions and Obsessions. For viewers searching for what changes now, the answer is simple: none of her on-air roles appear to be going away, and has locked down another key name before the merger is completed.
The renewal matters because Phillip has become part of the network’s core on-air lineup in a period when executives are trying to steady the roster. Anderson Cooper renewed terms last year, and Kaitlan Collins still has a few more years left on her contract, leaving Phillip as the last of the big three reporters to be secured ahead of the merger with Paramount Skydance.
Her path to that position has been steady. Before, Phillip worked for Politico covering the Obama White House, then moved to The Washington Post as a national political reporter and later to ABC News as a digital reporter covering politics. After joining, she covered the Trump administration, co-moderated the Democratic debate of the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, was named anchor of the weekend edition of Inside Politics in 2021 and moved to the 10 pm slot in 2023 to host NewsNight.
What makes the timing notable is the unease hanging over as the merger approaches. Some of that worry has centered on how Paramount CEO David Ellison has handled CBS News, including his decision last October to appoint Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief. Since then, CBS News has seen staff exits, firings and stories pulled during Weiss’s short tenure, a sequence that has not gone unnoticed inside the business.
Phillip has not commented publicly on the renewal, and said it does not comment on talent contracts. That leaves one question still open: how long, exactly, the new deal runs. What is clear is that Phillip is staying put, and has moved another major name off the board before the merger reshapes the company around her.
