Are CBS’ Two Talking Heads Better Than One? : Television: After seven weeks, the network has yet to reap a ratings windfall from its much-publicized teaming of Dan Rather and Connie Chung.

The pairing of Dan Rather and Connie Chung as co-anchors of the “CBS Evening News” amid much hoopla seven weeks ago was one of the major gambles in the history of the network.

As a solo anchor, Rather was running second in the ratings to ABC’s Peter Jennings. CBS clearly hoped that Chung, with her audience appeal, would help close the gap.

But despite all the hype that accompanied the teaming, there has been no magical instant reversal in the standings or even a significant shot in the arm in the ratings.

In fact, in the national audience rankings for last week, the CBS newscast, which has continued No. 2 to ABC, fell into last place, trailing the “NBC Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw.

Is CBS in for a big migraine? Or is it too soon to gauge audience response? Seven weeks seems long enough to surmise that viewers haven’t gone gaga over the high-profile anchor team. But David Poltrack, CBS senior vice president of planning and research, maintained at the outset that TV viewers are intensely loyal to their favorite news programs and that change in audience habits is “glacier-like.”

According to national ratings available for the first six weeks of the Rather-Chung teaming, CBS was down more than 2% from the comparable period last year. ABC was up 7% and widened its lead over CBS considerably, to 1.5 rating points (about 1.4 million homes), compared to 0.7 a year ago. NBC was up 1%.

CBS Research, using figures from 29 major markets, said its nightly news ratings may show an increase for this week, thanks partly to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. However, ABC was still way ahead in those markets.

But a CBS News spokesman says: “We’re in this for the long term. We’ve said that from the beginning. This is a 100-yard run in a 5,000-mile race.”

The problem, aside from how viewers finally perceive Rather and Chung as a team, is the traditional difficulty of unseating entrenched TV news powers, as demonstrated through the years by the reigns of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC, Walter Cronkite on CBS and now Jennings on ABC.

To some, CBS’ recent loss of the distinguished Bruce Morton to CNN is more significant to the status of a news organization than the attempt to create a popular anchor team. But the cult of personality is a hard fact of life on the nightly news, which is why many viewers are seeking their information elsewhere--like CNN and C-SPAN.

There are other problems nowadays in anchorland, making it more difficult for any new contender to gain a foothold in the nightly news arena. (And although Rather and Chung have their own individual track records--planets apart--they are still a new contender as a team and are bound to be judged as such by some.)

All the networks face the fact that, in addition to competing with a flood of TV alternatives that diminish the impact of their news programs and stars, they have lost some of the opportunities that once were more easily available to create important and even respected anchors.

Once upon a time, for instance, the status of network news divisions and their anchors was determined in part by their coverage of presidential election campaigns and the political conventions that provided the climax. The network news staff that stood out acquired a good deal of prestige that helped give it a claim to TV leadership until the next campaigns four years later.

Today, however, despite the displeasure of some TV journalists, including Rather, the networks have cut back drastically on much of the key campaign coverage and are trying to get by with as little convention reporting as possible in prime time, letting CNN, C-SPAN, PBS and other alternative outlets pick up the slack.

It is a terrific loss of face--and prestige. Huntley and Brinkley, for instance, established their nightly news dominance through their performance at the 1956 political conventions.

There is, of course, one never-ending way in which networks and their anchors can always rise to the top--and that is by grabbing great, major news stories, dominating them and riding them to prominence. It’s more difficult to do than in the past because CBS, NBC and ABC no longer are the whole ballgame.

Even though Rather is the heavyweight field-reporter half of the new CBS anchor team, public judgment of the pair, as a pair, may be made over the long haul partly by their combined work on a number of eye-catching, major stories. It would be surprising if CBS, seeking to boost its nightly news pairing, does not seize the opportunities to display such tandem work, because news-reading is not enough.

While Huntley and Brinkley scored big at the conventions, Cronkite gained huge public confidence by seizing the early space stories and personally reporting the hell out of them with an intelligence and emotion rarely seen on TV.

Ted Koppel and “Nightline,” meanwhile, grew to national stature at the time of the Iran hostage crisis. CNN, in its various leaps and bounds into the first rank of news operations, was an invaluable source during the Persian Gulf War, when not only Peter Arnett but a whole slew of formerly unknown reporters for the cable network blossomed into national figures.

There is, of course, another road to added recognition for nightly network anchors these days--and that is as hosts of the increasing number of prime-time newsmagazines. Rather, once with “60 Minutes,” now has “48 Hours.” As for his partner on the “CBS Evening News,” she has the new “Eye to Eye With Connie Chung,” and both of their programs are doing well in the ratings.

CBS surely is hoping that Chung, like Rather, will profit from her double exposure and that the result will be more viewers for both their magazines and the nightly news. But if the “CBS Evening News” continues to trail Jennings by a wide margin, will the network still think that the multiple exposure of Chung, as well as Rather, is nonetheless worthwhile because of the considerable earnings for the company?

“That’s apples and oranges,” says the CBS spokesman. “You do get exposure from having people on the evening news and a prime-time magazine, but that’s not the reason for doing an evening news broadcast.”

Next up: NBC jumps on the bandwagon when Brokaw, in addition to his nightly news anchoring, joins Katie Couric of the “Today” show as co-host of the new prime-time magazine “Now,” starting Aug. 18.

The money tree.