RX FOR AILING ‘MORNING NEWS’

The third-in-ratings “CBS Morning News” next week will feature a new anchor team--Maria Shriver and Forrest Sawyer--but only on a temporary basis, CBS said Friday. Co-anchor Phyllis George is taking two weeks off, but definitely will return, the network said.

There have been rumors that George, who joined the program only last January, may soon be headed elsewhere in CBS. But the spokeswoman denied this and said George has been busy taping a number of interviews the show plans to air in the fall.

The spokeswoman also said no successor has been found yet for former co-anchor Bill Kurtis, who left the show in June (she described as “pure fiction” a published report that actors Ken Howard and Wayne Rogers are among those being considered as George’s next co-anchor). She said it isn’t known when Kurtis’ replacement will be named.

There are no plans, she added, to hire a permanent replacement for Pat Collins, the bubbly entertainment reporter who is leaving the show Sept. 6 to form her own production company.

Sawyer, a former Atlanta television anchorman, began co-anchoring the “CBS Early Morning News” this summer. This week, he also began co-anchoring the “CBS Morning News” with George, filling in for vacationing Bob Schieffer, a Washington-based CBS News veteran.

(Schieffer is temporarily occupying the “CBS Morning News” co-anchor slot pending a permanent replacement for Kurtis.)

Shriver, a Los Angeles-based CBS News staffer who covers entertainment and life-style matters for the program, will join Sawyer next week as a substitute co-anchor and may continue to fill in for George during the second week of the latter’s vacation.

All this was disclosed as CBS brass met in New York this week to discuss future plans for their ailing two-hour weekday program, which has remained a perennial third in ratings despite periodic format changes and four executive producers since 1980.

George came to “Morning News” with no hard-news background and has committed several much-publicized verbal gaffes since arriving. CBS News executives had hoped her effervescent presence would help improve the program’s ratings but such has not happened.

But CBS emphatically denies rumors that ways are being sought to ease her out of her co-anchorship of the program gracefully.

There has been considerable speculation that another major revamping of the program is afoot, including the possible installation of two executive producers--one for hard news that would dominate the program’s first hour, the other for light features and light interviews that would prevail in the second hour.

However, a knowledgeable source at CBS said Friday that nothing is set yet, and that possible changes in the program--including the hiring of Kurtis’ successor--are still in the talking stages. No announcements are expected until after the Labor Day weekend, the source added.

According to the latest Nielsen ratings, for the week ending Aug. 9, the “CBS Morning News” had a 2.8 rating (nearly 2.4 million homes) compared to 3.8 for NBC’s “Today” and 4.3 for the usual leader of the network dawn patrol, ABC’s “Good Morning, America.”