Cbs Evening News Television Program

A New York state Supreme Court judge Monday limited the scope of Dan Rather's $70-million lawsuit against CBS Corp., tossing out his claims that the network committed fraud and unlawfully interfered with his contract in his final months at the news division.

In its first acknowledgment that the expensive gamble on Katie Couric has not yet paid off, CBS removed the executive producer of "CBS Evening News" late Wednesday, six months after the newscaster joined the program as its anchor, according to people familiar with the situation. Rome Hartman, a longtime "60 Minutes" producer who has run the evening newscast since November 2005, is expected to be replaced by Rick Kaplan, a veteran news executive who has served as president of CNN and MSNBC.

Sometimes a makeover can be too extreme. Faced with moribund viewership of its flagship newscast, CBS News is trying to stanch audience attrition by recasting the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" in a more traditional mold and tapping a veteran news producer to run the program.

Close watchers of the "CBS Evening News" may have noticed a subtle change in recent weeks. Instead of opening with a breezy "Hi, everyone," anchor Katie Couric has modified her welcome to the slightly more subdued "Hello, everyone." "Now it's a little formal," she told Stephen Colbert on Thursday during an appearance on his late-night Comedy Central show.

CBS News has again raided CNN in an effort to beef up its staff in the Katie Couric era. Jeff Greenfield, a senior political analyst for the cable network for nine years, has agreed to join CBS as the presidential campaign gears up. CBS recently hired general assignment reporter Kelly Wallace and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg away from CNN and has made CNN anchor Anderson Cooper a "60 Minutes" contributor.

MEMO to Katie Couric: You should send flowers to Don Imus. No, not so the shock jock might spill his guts to her in the inevitable comeback-trail interview. Instead, Couric should be grateful that last week's Imus uproar took the heat off "CBS Evening News" for its own embarrassing ethical lapse, this one involving plagiarism and other brands of deception. America, luckily for the former "Today" show co-host, has room for only one media scandal at a time.

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric isn't going anywhere, despite her difficulty in building a bigger audience for the show eight months into her tenure, former CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. CBS took a big but necessary gamble by bringing on Couric to replace Bob Schieffer in the chair previously held by Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite, Heyward said at a media conference in Manhattan on Wednesday.

CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves shot back at former CBS news anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday, saying his characterization of the network "tarting" up its newscast with anchor Katie Couric was "sexist." Rather, speaking by phone on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program with Joe Scarborough Monday, said CBS had made the mistake of taking the evening news broadcast and "dumbing it down, tarting it up," and playing up topics such as celebrities over war coverage.

NEW YORK--Katie Couric, who will mark her one-year anniversary as anchor of "CBS Evening News" next week, is embarking tonight on a 10-day trip to Iraq and Syria, the first network evening news anchor to visit the war zone in six months. It will be Couric's first visit to both countries, and the network plans to devote substantial air time to her coverage, with 16 stories by the anchor and chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan slated to run over four days.

NEW YORK -- From the beginning, Katie Couric's philosophy about her new post was clear. "I didn't come here to do a traditional newscast, and I don't think CBS hired me to do a traditional newscast," she told Reader's Digest in February.