Will Cost-Cutting Cost Couric?

Yesterday on Showbiz Tonight, I talked about Katie Couric‘s television future. “If she wants to stay on ‘Today’ and keep waking up at 4 a.m., then you know, she can name a price,” I said.

But maybe I’m miscalculating. NBC insiders are imagining how inflated Couric’s salary could become in the midst of major cutbacks for the network news division.

TVNewser hears that $50 million is being sliced from NBC News. Executives are grappling with options for cutting back. (Dan Abrams isn’t the only person without a BlackBerry!) So will Jeff Zucker and Bob Wright still pay for Katie?

> Update: 1:30pm: An e-mailer sums it all up: “What’s NBC going to do? Keep raising Couric’s salary to outrageous levels while at the same time cutting other salaries and positions in the news division? And at a time that the Today Show is having bumps in the ratings? Her time has come and gone — let her go to CBS.”