CBS Chairman and Chief Executive Leslie Moonves on Tuesday said it's "very possible" that retiring anchor Dan Rather will be replaced with multiple hosts on the "CBS Evening News," and he didn't rule out asking Comedy Central host Jon Stewart to play some role in the newscast.
Moonves' comments were the strongest indication that the network is seriously weighing the benefit of having more than one anchor in the chair. Given the competition from the Internet and cable news, he said, the network is exploring several ideas, including placing multiple anchors in different cities.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday January 19, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 3 inches; 139 words Type of Material: Correction
Jon Stewart and CBS -- A story in some copies of today's Calendar suggested that Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," was being considered as a "potential inheritor" of an anchor role on the "CBS Evening News." In his session Tuesday at the Television Critics Assn. meeting in Universal City, CBS Chairman and Chief Executive Leslie Moonves did not characterize Stewart as such but said he wouldn't rule out approaching Stewart for some other type of role in the newscast after Dan Rather retires. Also, noting that Comedy Central and CBS are both owned by Viacom, the story quoted Moonves as saying, "Jon Stewart is part of our company, so we would talk to him." Moonves actually said: "Jon Stewart is part of our company. We speak to him regularly about all sorts of different things."
Appearing in an open forum for the first time since dismissing four news staffers connected to a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story, Moonves was peppered with extensive questions at the semiannual Television Critics Assn. meeting in Universal City.
He defended the network's handling of the aftermath of the flawed "60 Minutes" report about President Bush's military service, calling it a mistake that will lead to changes in the news division.
An independent panel report on the Bush story released last week, as well as Rather's scheduled exit March 9, gives CBS "a great opportunity" to reexamine the role of its news division, Moonves said.
"We're looking from top to bottom at how things are done," he said. "The world is very different than it was when Walter Cronkite was in the chair."
Under Cronkite, "Evening News" was long the No. 1 network newscast. But CBS has been ranked No. 3 for most of the last 20 years.
Moonves noted that the network has had some success with its "Early Show" ensemble of four co-hosts and that "there can be a parallel drawn to the evening news."
CBS and other networks have experimented with multiple anchors before, with mixed results. Rather and Connie Chung co-anchored "Evening News" from 1993 to 1995. Barbara Walters co-anchored "ABC Evening News" with Harry Reasoner from 1976 to 1978; ABC later installed an "anchor team" with Frank Reynolds, Peter Jennings and Max Robinson.
Early speculation about who might replace Rather, either as a single anchor or as part of a team, has included ABC's Diane Sawyer and the "Today" show's Katie Couric, as well as lesser-known internal candidates such as CBS correspondent John Roberts.
Noting that the average age of news viewers among broadcast and cable networks is "way over 45," he said that "one of the things we're looking at is how do we make [the newscast] younger [and] more relevant....
