Longtime CBS Anchor Leaves News, Starts Fresh as Game Show Host

Deborah Norville is ready to embrace a new chapter of her career after stepping away from Inside Edition after 30 years.

The longtime news program host confirmed back in April that she would be exiting Inside Edition, an announcement that came just four months after she was revealed to be the host of the new syndicated game show, The Perfect Line.

Premiering on Sept. 8 on CBS affiliate channels, The Perfect Line turns a traditional trivia game on its head as contestants are given a category and asked to arrange events, items or people in the correct order. If a player creates “the perfect line,” they avoid elimination and proceed in the competition for the chance to win big.

Norville told TV Insider in a new interview published Monday that she was ready to take on a new challenge after deciding to leave Inside Edition.

“I had been there for 30-plus years, which is way longer than most people do anything; it’s basically a lifetime and a half, if you think about it, if a lifetime is allegedly 20 years,” she told the outlet. “I felt very strongly that the way we do the show, we’re in a very small studio with a green screen. I felt like this was something we could do remotely. I wanted to do the show in another location, and that wasn’t something that they were prepared to do. So, okay, fine. It’s your candy store, and that’s the way you get to choose how to run it.”

It was then that Norville decided to “move on,” as she said she didn’t want to wait to “bail when [the show] was going down the tubes,” but instead wanted to leave when things were “in good shape.”

Moving into the game show territory was an exciting prospect, as Norville said it was one of the “few things” she had never done. And it turns out that The Perfect Line was a perfect fit.

“The other thing is, the game is fun and the game is accessible,” she explained. “There’s some game shows that are very challenging, and you sit there and you go, ‘I’ve never even heard of the country they’re talking about, much less the capital city.’ And at a certain point, I think, if you’re a viewer and you’re constantly left to feel inadequate, ‘I don’t know that. I don’t know that either,’ you’re gonna get frustrated, you’re gonna turn away.”

Watching The Perfect Line allows people to play along at home even if they’re unsure of the answers. “It’s a more accessible game than some of the ones that are out there, but it’s the kind of game that you can play with your family,” she said. “You’re not going to be embarrassed. There’s nothing that’s not age-appropriate. So I think it ticks a lot of boxes for people who, especially in these times, just want to be able to turn on the TV and not feel overwhelmed.”