WITHOUT RATHER, CBS DROPS TO THIRD

NEW YORK — With anchorman Dan Rather away on assignment, the “CBS Evening News” was third in the audience ratings last week, figures from the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed Tuesday. It was the first time in nearly a year that the once-dominant newscast had been last in the nightly news race.

CBS’ program averaged a 9.5 rating for the week, Nielsen said, while ABC’s “World News Tonight,” usually in third place, was second with a 9.7 average. The “NBC Nightly News” registered a 10.3, marking the seventh week in a row that it has ranked as the most-watched network newscast. Each ratings point represents 874,000 homes.

A CBS News spokesman said a “major factor” in last week’s outcome, in addition to Rather’s absence, was the preemption of the “Evening News” in six Western cities (though not Los Angeles) for CBS’ live telecast of the Boston Celtics-Houston Pistons pro basketball playoff game.

The third-place finish came one day after CBS released a letter from company president Laurence A. Tisch in which he vehemently denied a report that he had criticized Rather.

In this month’s edition of Washingtonian magazine, writer Barbara Matusow quotes Tisch as saying, “Why do I have to pay the No. 1 salary to the No. 2 anchorman?” She later said she got the quote from 10 people.

In an angry letter to Matusow, Tisch denied the remark and called Rather, the “Evening News” anchor since March, 1981, “the bedrock of CBS News.” Rather reportedly earns $2.5 million annually.

Neither Rather nor CBS News President Howard Stringer was available for comment about the latest ratings. The last time CBS News finished third was the week of June 23, 1986.

Rather was off the “Evening News” last week, working in the Soviet Union on a documentary, “Seven Days in Moscow.” He also is absent from the newscast this week, working on a documentary about Vietnam veterans.

Bob Schieffer, the veteran Washington correspondent, filled in for Rather last week. Diane Sawyer of “60 Minutes” substituted for him Monday and Tuesday night this week, and Charles Kuralt is assigned to sit in through Friday.

Bill Lord, executive producer of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” called the latest Nielsen returns “an example of the tightness of the ratings race” between the three news programs.

“I think we’re all very close to each other now,” he said Tuesday. “For the last couple of weeks, we’ve all been within a ratings point of each other.”

An NBC News spokesman said of last week’s ratings: “We’re very pleased and gratified.”

Arnold Becker, a CBS research vice-president in Los Angeles, conceded that Rather’s program “is not what it once was” in the ratings “and that’s principally caused by our slipping in prime-time ratings, I suspect.”

CBS’ prime-time ratings this season were 2% lower than the year before, and the network finished second to NBC for the second consecutive year.

During the season, research figures show, all three network newscasts lost audiences, but the “CBS Evening News” suffered the greatest loss, down 10% compared to the 1985-86 season. ABC’s “World News Tonight” was 9% lower, while “NBC Nightly News” dropped only 1%.

Becker said that the third-place finish of “Evening News” last week could be just a one-time setback and not a harbinger of bad times to come.

“I never like to say anything about news until I see it (a ratings pattern) for three months,” he said in a telephone interview. “When you’ve got a three-point lead as we used to have, then you don’t notice the glitches. But once you’re close, they (the ratings) bounce around a little bit. . . . My attitude is that nowadays CBS and NBC are tied in this regard, and that on any given week one or the other may win.”