Pauley will leave NBC in June

Jane Pauley said Thursday that, come June, she will leave NBC, where she has been a major presence for 27 years, to start a new phase in her life. She hasn’t decided exactly what that will involve, she told her staff, although while on a recent sabbatical from co-anchoring “Dateline NBC” she started work on a book.

Pauley, 52, told the network she didn’t want to renew her contract, which expired this month, but she agreed to stay on until the end of the broadcast season.

Pauley started with NBC in 1975 at the network’s Chicago station, then spent 13 years as co-anchor of the morning “Today” show, first paired with Tom Brokaw and then with Bryant Gumbel. She left the show in 1989 in a celebrated corporate bungle, when executives positioned Deborah Norville as her replacement.

An NBC News spokeswoman said no decision has been made about how or whether to replace Pauley at “Dateline,” which she co-anchors with Stone Phillips. The newsmagazine has been sagging in the ratings this season. Pauley is the second longtime NBC News anchor to announce plans to quit; Brokaw also said he plans to step down, after the 2004 elections.

Elizabeth Jensen