The Chair

CBS is considering multiple newscasters to replace Dan Rather in the anchor’s chair when he steps down in March.

Viacom co-prexy-co-chief operating officer Leslie Moonves said an anchor partnership is being considered as part of a broad rethinking of the “CBS Evening News” franchise, and that no candidates have been ruled out.

“We are exploring every possibility right now,” Moonves said. “After the first of the year, we are going to come to a decision and, by the way, it could be more than one person.”

The possibility of a second or even a third chair on the “CBS Evening News” set throws a new angle into the anchor-heir handicapping, but it also brings back some sour memories at CBS of the failed partnering of Rather and Connie Chung in 1994, a year before Moonves joined the network.

Anchor duos have produced some of TV journalism’s finest moments, such as NBC’s Chet Huntley-David Brinkley partnership, which lasted more than a decade, and some of its biggest flops, including Tom Brokaw and Roger Mudd in the early ’80s and the Barbara Walters-Harry Reasoner debacle in 1976.

I’ve got a better idea. I think they should leave the CBS anchor chair empty. Then if anyone actually notices that the chair is empty by, say, 2006, give the chair to the person who actually noticed. Sound like a plan? It makes as much sense as anything else they have been thinking of doing.