CBS NEWS CHIEF: UPBEAT AGENDA

CBS News has put its recent and much-publicized financial difficulties out of sight and out of mind, and its leaders advised the network’s affiliated stations Wednesday to do the same.

In the final speech of the 1987 CBS Television Network Affiliates Convention at the Century Plaza, CBS News President Howard Stringer told the gathered representatives that he didn’t want to talk about the recent financial problems.

“Sometimes the sounds of our past reverberate around the Broadcast Center like the chains of Marley’s Ghost, so loud they threaten to drown put the future,” he said.

Still, the chain-rattling spirit to which Stringer referred--the recent cost reductions in the CBS News operation that led to 215 layoffs and a 10% cut in its $300-million budget--haunted the affiliates’ three-day conference.

But, Stringer chose to downplay the cuts, trumpeting the high quality of the network’s “Evening News,” “60 Minutes,” the revival of “Person to Person” with Diane Sawyer and “Seven Days in Moscow,” a documentary that takes a look into Soviet life and goes into production this week.

Stringer said the network’s low-rated “West 57th” news magazine program is on its way up, and that Charles Kuralt and Robert (Shad) Northshield, former producer of the “CBS Sunday Morning” show Kuralt anchors, will team up on “Try to Remember,” a new venture and prime-time pilot.

Although quicker than Stringer to acknowledge CBS News’ troubles, veteran anchorman Dan Rather, who appeared after his boss’ speech, echoed the reassurance that CBS News has not been paralyzed by financial woes.

“Paralysis? Bull! We’re too busy running to be paralyzed by anything,” Rather said, noting that he planned to rush from the Century Plaza to hop a plane for the Soviet Union to begin work on “Seven Days in Moscow.”

“Yes, we are all concerned in one way or another (about finances), but you can bank on it--you will have the best damn newscasts ever made,” Rather offered as a rallying cry before striding off the stage.

Stringer’s decision not to address financial issues directly was just fine with the station representatives, most of whom were in an ebullient mood Wednesday after a look at CBS’ nine new entertainment shows Tuesday.

“I don’t know why he should address (the cutbacks),” said George Lyons of WWMT-TV in Kalamazoo, Mich. “It’s an inside issue within the company, and it’s up to them to run it as they see fit. And they’re doing a hell of a fine job.”

Dan Bates of KSLA-TV in Shreveport, La., said, “The issue has been addressed so much, there’s nothing else to say. The past is the past. I don’t think this was the proper forum for it.”

Said Adam Young of Young Broadcasting Inc. of New York: “This (cutback issue) has just gotten out of hand as far as press coverage goes.”

He added tartly: “They could probably cut another 200 people out of the news department without seriously affecting the news. I think it’s about time, and it should have been done a long time ago.”