CBS Prepares to Land a New Anchor

ABC's anchor situation remains unsettled because Bob Woodruff, Vargas's co-anchor, was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq in January and it is not clear when he might be able to return to the second-place broadcast. ABC plans to name a temporary co-anchor -- most likely "Good Morning America" co-host Charlie Gibson, according to sources at the network -- but that, in turn, might hurt the efforts of his colleague Diane Sawyer to overtake "Today" in the ratings.

Top-rated "NBC Nightly News" remains in the strongest position because Brian Williams, who succeeded Tom Brokaw in December 2004, was announced 2 1/2 years earlier and has clearly established himself in the job, especially with his coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

An impassioned debate has flourished about whether the skills that have made Couric such a successful morning personality would translate on a terser, more tightly scripted evening newscast. There is a faction at CBS News that questions whether she is the right choice, how much the broadcast would change to accommodate her, and why the network should switch anchors now when Schieffer has lured as many as 740,000 new viewers.

After a 15-year run at "Today" in which Couric has interviewed everyone from President Bush, Tony Blair and Colin Powell to Bill Gates, Donald Trump and O.J. Simpson, her hard-news background is hardly in doubt, despite the breakfast-show requirements of cooking and fashion segments.

"A lot of her considerable talents don't translate to the evening news because they can't, by definition," said Erik Sorenson, a former MSNBC president who once produced the "CBS Evening News." "You cannot sing a cabaret number on the evening news. They won't have her ski. They won't have her dance.

"That said, she has a ton of other skills, interviewing and presiding over news coverage. She was on the air when 9/11 happened. And she brings a huge base of the same kind of people who watch evening news."

Emily Rooney, a former ABC News producer who hosts two shows at Boston's WGBH-TV, said: "People tell me they will watch the 'CBS Evening News' because they like her. She'll have a huge curiosity factor in the beginning that should last for months." In an evening-news role, Rooney said, "we're going to see a completely different person."

Geneva Overholser, a former Des Moines Register editor and Washington Post ombudsman, said she was "amazed" at how good an interviewer Couric was when Overholser appeared on "Today."

"The criticism of her -- she doesn't sound like an anchor, she doesn't look like an uncle, she's not Walter Cronkite -- well, maybe he was the right model for that time," Overholser said. Couric, she said, is "smart and capable," as well as "pretty and outgoing and womanly."

Television analyst Andrew Tyndall said the anchor job has two parts: reading the teleprompter and "sitting behind the desk when there's a crisis." Couric, he said, "is very good at doing live television" and "competent" as a news reader, although not as good as Schieffer.

"Today" co-anchor Matt Lauer is now a big enough star in his own right and "has proved he can carry the show while they break in a replacement," Tyndall added.

Couric has been something of a lightning rod for television critics. "There's a lot of jealousy because the woman has done quite well for herself, and there's still some residual sexism in the world," Sorenson said.

CBS did make one anchor move yesterday, elevating Russ Mitchell, co-anchor of the Saturday "Early Show" and one of Schieffer's principal substitutes, to anchor of the Sunday evening news. "Russ is one of our most versatile anchors," CBS News President Sean McManus said in a statement. "He has more than earned this position, and I'm pleased to further raise Russ's profile at CBS News."