Harry Smith to Leave CBS for NBC News

7:57 AM PDT 7/8/2011 by Marisa Guthrie

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The anchor, who was ousted from the "Early Show" last year, will work on Brian Williams' upcoming primetime news hour.

Long-time CBS News anchor Harry Smith is leaving the network for NBC News.

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Smith, who has been at CBS News for 25 years, will join NBC News, where he'll be among the anchors featured on Brian Williams' upcoming primetime news hour, say sources. Rome Hartman, who worked at CBS News for more than two decades, is the executive producer of Williams' show.

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Smith joined CBS News in 1986 as a Dallas-based correspondent. He anchored The Early Show for a combined 17 years until last December when CBS News abruptly replaced the entire anchor team; Smith, his co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez and weatherman Dave Price with Erica Hill, Chris Wragge, Marysol Castro and Jeff Glor.

Since then, Smith has essentially been an anchor without a regular broadcast, filling in on various programs including the CBS Evening News.

Read the full memo from CBS News president David Rhodes below:

Harry Smith has been a fixture here at CBS News for a generation—he joined us in Dallas in 1986—but today he’s decided to move on.

Until late last year Harry anchored the Early Show, where for years he took us through breaking news events from the war in Iraq to the tsunami in Sri Lanka to Columbine and Oklahoma City. Harry conducted news-making interviews with the biggest names in politics and entertainment. During the course of his career here, Harry sat down with six presidents, from Barack Obama back to Richard Nixon.

In my own recent time at CBS News I enjoyed working with Harry as he reported from Egypt, Libya, Malta, and Japan. Frankly we may have enjoyed all those assignments more than he did—he’s seen a lot of airport departure lounges over his career and especially in the last four months.

If you saw Harry’s piece closing the CBS Evening News the first Monday after the Japanese tsunami, you know what great work he is capable of.

Jeff Fager and I want to thank Harry for his extraordinary contribution to CBS over 25 years. If you see Harry around the newsroom in New York today, or otherwise are able to reach out, please join us in wishing him well.