Dan Rather May Try a Stand-Up Routine

As the new season begins next month, ABC, NBC and CNN news anchors will be seated as always. But “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather may stand and deliver the news.

A final decision hasn’t been made yet, but “I think we’re going that way,” Tom Bettag, the program’s executive producer, said Friday. “When Dan gets back from vacation, we’re going to rehearse it, look at it and, if we like it, we will then do it.”

Bettag insisted that Rather’s potential move from chair to feet “isn’t a big deal.” Still, in the early 1970s, during the Watergate era, a big deal was made of the fact that then-anchor Walter Cronkite rose one night from his “CBS Evening News” chair and walked over to a chart to explain the path of the scandal.

Should Rather become the first network anchor to do stand-up news on a regular basis, he will be “standing up part of the time or all of the time” on the broadcast, Bettag said.

The change would be part of an effort to give the “CBS Evening News” what Bettag called “a slightly different graphics look.” He emphasized that this should in no way be considered a major revamp of the broadcast’s format.

The new look would include a screen to show people with whom Rather was conducting live interviews in other cities. The screen would be larger than the TV set now used by the program, but smaller than those used on public TV’s “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” or ABC’s “Nightline,” Bettag said.

Rather’s broadcast usually finishes first in the network news ratings, and it would seem unusual to change what is working. But Bettag noted that changes--including the theme music--were made in the program two seasons ago, when it was also leading the Nielsens.

One shouldn’t fear change, he said, asserting that he believes “that the way you stay No. 1 is by continually staying fresh, open to new ideas. . . . This is a continually evolving medium, and you keep trying new things and staying fresh.”

Although no date for the proposed change has been set, Bettag said, “Our hope is to do it the Monday after Labor Day,” which would be Sept. 11.

Coincidentally on that date, Rather’s newscast and “CBS This Morning” each will launch a weeklong series on the nation’s drug crisis, with the general theme of “A Nation Under Siege.”

The “Evening News” will devote between 4 1/2 to 5 minutes each night--and possibly longer--to the drug issue, Bettag said. At the minimum, that would amount to nearly 25% of each night’s 22-minute broadcast.

During that week, Rather will also anchor a three-hour “48 Hours” special, “Return to Crack Street.” The Sept. 14 program is a look at the drug crisis since the 1987 CBS News special “48 Hours on Crack Street,” which led to the weekly “48 Hours” series that Rather anchors. That prime-time series began in January, 1988.