CBS Ends Chung’s Role as ‘Evening News’ Co-Anchor : Television: Sources say she will leave network. Rather will regain his solo status as broadcast experiment ends.

Nearly two years after the pairing of Connie Chung and Dan Rather on the “CBS Evening News” made front-page headlines, CBS has ended their controversial dual-anchor arrangement. Faced with her removal as co-anchor, Chung has told network executives that she intends to leave the network, sources close to the TV journalist said Saturday.

CBS News President Eric Ober confirmed the move in an interview Saturday night. “Effective on Monday, we are going to have a single anchor with Dan Rather,” he said.

“The dual-anchoring wasn’t working, and we went with the person we felt would be the strongest anchor. We are in discussions with Connie’s agent about her future,” he added.

According to sources close to Chung, CBS president Peter Lund and Ober had told Alfred Geller, Chung’s agent, that they intended to take her off the “Evening News.” At the same time, they said that “Eye to Eye,” Chung’s prime-time newsmagazine, which has fared poorly in the ratings--87th in the 1994-95 season--was unlikely to be renewed when CBS announces its prime-time schedule this week.

The CBS executives are said to have offered Chung anchor duties on the weekend edition of the “Evening News,” substitute anchoring for Rather when he was away, and a production unit to do some special programs for CBS.

Chung told the CBS executives that anything less than her co-equal role on the newscast was unacceptable, the sources said, and then asked for a financial settlement of her contract. Her multimillion-dollar contract is up for renewal in less than a year.

“This is disappointing and unpleasant,” Chung said in an interview Saturday night. Sources close to Chung said she feels she is being made a scapegoat for the failure of the newscast in the ratings.

CBS executives had met throughout the day Friday to discuss the fate of the controversial pairing. At that time, sources close to Chung said CBS had already made its decision, but sources at the network said no decision had been made.

Rather said he was not informed of the decision until minutes before Ober confirmed the news to The Times.

“I’m stunned by the swiftness of it,” said Rather, who was giving a commencement speech in Texas on Saturday night. “I’m going to take a deep breath and come in on Monday to do Job One: the news.”

The pairing of Rather and Chung, which was designed to improve the ratings of the newscast, has been under mounting criticism inside and outside the network. The newscast is in third place in the ratings, and Chung has been criticized--unfairly, her supporters say--for her hard-news reporting.

Pressure on CBS to resolve the situation increased recently over the issue of coverage of the bomb attack in Oklahoma City. Angered by the network’s decision to send Chung alone to cover the story, Rather, who had publicly supported the pairing for two years, told CBS executives that he could not continue the dual anchoring on the same basis and that changes needed to be made in the newscast.

“I did feel that it wasn’t working,” Rather said Saturday, speaking at the University of Texas at Austin. “But I have been a friend and supporter of Connie’s, personally and professionally. This was not my call to make.”

“This is not Connie’s fault,” said Ober, who, along with then-CBS President Howard Stringer, made Chung co-anchor with Rather in an attempt to bring younger viewers to the broadcast. “The newscast has had some journalistic successes, but it just isn’t working.”

Chung’s supporters note that CBS’s news ratings have been hurt--as have the network’s prime-time ratings--by the loss of several key affiliates. They also contend that Rather was not supportive enough of her efforts to do hard-news reporting, a charge that his supporters vehemently deny.

Recent weekly ratings had the CBS newscast a half point behind that of NBC, and 2.2 ratings points behind ABC. (A ratings point represents 954,000 TV households.)

Chung had anchored from the Middle East and China recently, but she has been criticized for her tabloid subjects on “Eye to Eye.” Although many journalistic critics supported her, she also was hurt recently by the controversy over whether House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s mother was speaking off the record when she told Chung that Gingrich had called First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton a “bitch.”

CBS executives had hoped to avoid a decision on the Rather-Chung arrangement until after an affiliates convention in June. But local-station managers had told them they wanted the situation--an important one for their news ratings too--to be resolved before the meeting.

The co-anchor arrangement was the first male-female pairing since Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner were paired by ABC in the 1970s. Chung has now reached a similar end. The Walters-Reasoner matchup also failed after three rocky years.

“I now know how Barbara Walters felt almost 20 years ago,” Chung said in her statement.

Times wire services contributed to this story.