He's live in L.A.

The hour was late, the rock music was blaring and the Friday night festivities were at full steam at Pinot Hollywood as the guest of honor, newly arrived from the Midwest, made the rounds. As new KCBS anchor Paul Magers mingled with dozens of his colleagues who had gathered, Laura Diaz -- the night's host and Magers' co-anchor -- approached her new partner to see how he was doing.

"He had this big smile on his face and he said, 'The Doors are playing, and I'm in Los Angeles,' " Diaz recalled of that January night. "He said, 'It doesn't get better than this.' "

If the party was loud, Magers' entry into L.A. was not. On Jan. 5, he quietly slipped behind the anchor desk and began putting his imprint on KCBS Channel 2's 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts. With an authoritative demeanor, deep and resonant voice and off-the-cuff sense of humor, Magers is the station's $2-million-plus gamble.

In a landscape that stretches from Hal Fishman's professorial sensibility to Paul Moyer's polished-casual style to Marc Brown's personable approach, Magers has been tough to pigeonhole.

Just two months into the job, the 49-year-old Magers already seems at ease with his co-anchor. But the TV news veteran is still feeling his way and hasn't yet had the opportunity to show many of the qualities that made him the star KCBS chose to build its future around. Once he hits his stride, though, the station is counting on him to work the kind of ratings magic that he did in Minneapolis, where he helped turn KARE into the city's top-rated station and was dubbed the "anchor god" by C.J., a Minneapolis Star Tribune gossip columnist who featured his name frequently.

He has his work cut out for him in L.A.'s highly competitive local news scene, where seven English-language stations offer news and where winning a few ratings points can translate into millions of advertising dollars. In the critical 11 p.m. spot, which remains the most lucrative slot for news, KCBS is No. 3, averaging more than 221,490 households -- far less than No. 1-ranked KNBC with 388,958 households.

Magers' hire is part of a larger strategy by CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., which is on a spending spree to beef up the local news operations at its affiliates around the country. Although CBS is the country's most-watched network in prime time and during the day, its local news affiliates in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- the top three TV markets -- have generally trailed their competitors in the ratings. And "Late Show with David Letterman's" camp has made no secret that it wants better lead-ins. During the past year and a half, in addition to Los Angeles, new anchor teams have been set up at Viacom-owned stations in Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami and Denver.