THE INS AND OUTS AT ‘CBS MORNING NEWS’

It is not yet called “The CBS Morning Rumor.” But speculation about the troubled, third-in-ratings “CBS Morning News” continues to run rampant, specifically with talk of Bill Kurtis’ impending exit and murmurs of a yet another executive producer coming in.

Questions about all this are certain to be raised Friday in Phoenix, Ariz., when TV critics and writers attending CBS-TV’s annual meet-the-press sessions there get to query CBS News President Ed Joyce.

But this much has been confirmed. Phyllis George, after five months of co-anchoring and one request for two guests to hug each other, takes a week’s vacation from the program next week, a CBS spokeswoman says. George will return after her brief respite.

Co-anchor Kurtis, who’ll share the show next week with Maria Shriver, also wants a respite. But when he goes, he won’t return. He wants out. Some reports say he’ll leave at the end of next week. However, word from within the show is that he’ll stay until the end of June, maybe a bit longer, unless CBS management decides that earlier is better. Kurtis has been with the two-hour program since March, 1982, when he was teamed with the then-resident co-anchor, Diane Sawyer, now with “60 Minutes.” He came to the “Morning News” from a successful nine-year stand anchoring at CBS-owned WBBM-TV in Chicago.

There’s no official announcement from CBS yet on what will become of Kurtis, or whether “Morning News” executive producer Jon Katz soon will be headed for other things at CBS News, as has been widely rumored.

A former newspaper editor (Minneapolis Star, Baltimore News-American and Dallas Times-Herald), Katz first joined the program in early 1983, when then-CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter hired him as its manager of news planning.

Katz became head man at the “Morning News” in March, 1984, the fourth executive producer the program has had since 1980. Like his predecessors, Katz was charged with the difficult task of sprucing up the low-rated show and making it competitive with its bouncier rivals. Even with the much-publicized George aboard, an enlarged array of “back-of-the-book” feature segments and a far sprightlier demeanor than in years past, the “Morning News” has yet to escape the ratings cellar. And the latest Nielsens are further cause for lamentations at CBS.

The numbers, for the week ending May 24, show the program still deep in third place, getting an average 2.9 rating (nearly 2.5 million homes).

It was a very good week for NBC’s revived “Today Show,” though. “Today” easily won with a 5.4 rating (nearly 4.6 million homes), triumphing for the fourth time this year over the leader for the past three years, ABC’s still-competitive “Good Morning, America,” seen last week in an estimated 4,245,000 homes.

(Unlike its rivals, ABC’s show is run by its entertainment division, not the network’s news division.)

The Kurtis-George pairing on the “Morning News” was the show’s fourth mixed-doubles team since 1973, when CBS united crusty Hughes Rudd with sassy Sally Quinn in what proved a short-lived relationship: Quinn soon returned to the Washington Post.

Quinn had a news background but lacked television experience. The reverse applied to George, as critics and news traditionalists amply noted when she joined CBS News. She had a television background--on “The NFL Today”--but no hard news experience.

But contrary to what has been said or printed, Kurtis’ yearning to leave the “Morning News” is not because he’s embarrassed by the effervescent George, whose primary assignment seems to be to bring warmth, if not light, to the dawn patrol at CBS.

The real problem, sources say, is that the veteran newsman has grown unhappy with the lighter, brighter look that he thinks the program started trying to offer viewers several months before the arrival of George, whom he personally likes.

He reportedly feels that she is not to blame, that her employment by CBS News is only a symptom of the direction in which the program seemed to be headed--away from straight news and toward the chatty, celebrity-prone, feature-filled doings of “Good Morning, America.”

Sources say that Kurtis, whose CBS contract expires next March, wants to return to no-frills journalism, perhaps in some arrangement whereby he could return to anchoring at WBBM in Chicago but occasionally do a CBS News documentary.

When he does leave “Morning News,” his probable temporary successor--pending discovery of a suitable partner for George--is Washington-based Bob Schieffer, once a regular anchor on the program.

Susan Winston, currently at ABC, is among those cited as high on the list of possible successors to Katz, if indeed he walks the producer’s plank. She has been working of late on various projects for ABC News and Sports President Roone Arledge.

Like Phyllis George, Winston has no news background. She does have a good track record in getting ratings, though. From October, 1981 until last July, she was executive producer of a hit show--”Good Morning, America.”

But that doesn’t automatically mean she can succeed at “The CBS Morning News.” Consider the case of George Merlis. He preceded Winston as executive producer of “Good Morning, America,” and is credited with much of that show’s early success against “Today.”

Then he left to take over from Robert (Shad) Northshield as executive producer of “The CBS Morning News.” Merlis tried to give the show a faster, brighter pace. But it remained in third place. And he was succeeded by Robert Ferrante. Who in turn was succeeded by Katz.