Rising ‘Morning’ Star at CBS : Television: Paula Zahn, co-anchor of ‘CBS This Morning,’ is making her mark in the sunrise news business.

She’s the new kid on the block in morning TV, and she strides confidently into a coffee shop at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Eyes turn to Paula Zahn, co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,” as she makes her way to a table.

It’s true, of course, that Deborah Norville has been getting most of the attention in the morning-program competition since replacing Jane Pauley six months ago in NBC’s ongoing soap opera called the “Today” show.

But Zahn quietly slipped into her CBS anchor role just four months ago and has been getting the kind of general acceptance that the beleaguered Norville would kill for.

Zahn and her anchor partner, Harry Smith, may be the most comfortable CBS morning news team since the successful pairing of Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis from 1982 to 1985.

The 34-year-old Zahn is an attention-getter, which is what CBS is counting on. And she has opinions that she is not hesitant to express--on the Norville-Pauley fiasco, for instance, and NBC’s mishandling of the anchor changeover.

“When the story broke,” says Zahn, “I was very insulted. It was very belittling to women. Jane Pauley is a woman who was on that show for 13 years and certainly earned her stripes. Deborah Norville was not a newcomer to the news business. She’s proven herself. But suddenly it was construed as a catfight.

‘I just had some strong personal reactions to the situation. I felt sorry for both Jane and Deborah. It certainly is not the way you treat a veteran of a broadcast that had been No. 1. And if you’re bringing some great new hope aboard, you have to give them some kind of protection.”

The severe slip in “Today” ratings since Pauley’s departure has made the atmosphere of morning television “incredibly competitive,” says Zahn. She speaks of “the demise of the ‘Today’ show,” and says she thinks NBC “has shaken up an institution--and it’s going to take years for them to recover.

“I just feel that some of the recent changes they’ve made--like bringing Joe Garagiola back--might just be band-aids. I think when you bleed that badly, it’s very difficult to convince viewers to come back. Morning viewers, by their very nature, are much more habitual than other viewers. They tend to be very put off by changes, particularly changes they don’t think should have been made in the first place.”

Zahn orders a poached egg. It is 10 a.m., and she has been up since 2 a.m. to do the New York-based “CBS This Morning” from Los Angeles during a recent visit by the show here. She is chatty, friendly and digs into her purse to show pictures of her baby girl, Haley Brynne. Her husband, Richard Cohen, is a real estate developer.

A realist, Zahn acknowledges that if “CBS This Morning” has improved its competitive position, it is more because of “Today” coming down than her own show going up.

“Absolutely,” she says. “I’ll buy that.”

ABC’s “Good Morning America,” with co-hosts Charles Gibson and Joan Lunden, is now the runaway leader, unbeaten since the start of the year--in short, since Pauley left and Norville took her place on “Today.”

In the second quarter of this year, “Good Morning America” averaged a 4.3 rating (4 million TV homes) and a 21% share of the audience. “Today” plummeted to a 3.3 (3 million homes) and 16% of viewers. And “CBS This Morning” was last, as usual, with a 2.4 (2.2 million homes) and a 12% audience share.

Of added significance in that 13-week period was that “Today” suddenly was closer to last place than first in both its rating and share.

“We are definitely competitive now,” says Zahn. “I don’t have any illusions about how long it’s going to take us to get to the top. Is it going to happen overnight? No. There are things that are outside of our control.”

For instance?

Referring to CBS’ weakness in late-night programming--which is critical to morning shows because viewers often resume watching on the same station--she says: “We know that CBS is not where the audience is turning off their sets the night before.

“But I really believe we’re putting on the best broadcast. I think if we can continue to provide some kind of continuity and people know what to expect every morning, then we’ll eventually win. Because NBC has lost such a large part of its audience, we’re gaining some ground. And some of those disenfranchised viewers are tuning us in. We have a chance now for second place.”

Zahn replaced Kathleen Sullivan as the co-anchor of “CBS This Morning” and says of her new pairing with Smith:

“It’s as if you’re thrown into some kind of crash marriage. You spend a lot of time around each other. The fact that my transition was as smooth as it was says a lot about Harry. He trusted me, which is probably the best thing you can say about anybody. I really like him, both as a professional and off the air.”

Zahn joined “CBS This Morning” from ABC, where she’d been anchor of “World News This Morning” and “The Health Show” (she replaced Sullivan on that series, too), and also did the news segments for “Good Morning America.”

She’s bounced around TV for years. Chicago. Dallas. San Diego. Houston. Boston. Washington. And, oh yes, Los Angeles, where she did a quick 1 1/2 years as anchor and reporter on KCBS Channel 2 in 1986 and 1987: “I don’t think I was in Los Angeles long enough to have much impact.”

But as CBS’ new hope in the morning wars, she thinks she’s knows what viewers want when they wake up and flip on the TV: “They want to know, ‘What happened last night? Has my world changed? Am I safe?’ There are a lot of distractions when people watch morning TV, so you just hope you can find some kind of thread and provide some kind of context for the day and make sense.

“You have to make people feel comfortable. If people invite you into their bedroom early in the morning, they’ve got to feel that you’re some kind of friend.”