After being unceremoniously dumped by CBS a few weeks ago, legendary news anchor Dan Rather is moving on to his next project. You’d think he’d have the good graces simply to retire, but like so many men of his generation he loves to work.
So Rather has joined Mark Cuban’s high-definition television channel HDNet. He’ll produce and host his own weekly news programs on the cable channel. The first, a one hour show called "Dan Rather Reports" will air starting in October. The show will be completely uncensored, and feature what they describe as “hard-edged” field reports, investigations, and interviews. Rather has full editorial and creative control, so expect the show to reflect his world view in a way his CBS work may not have been able to.
Rather says he chose HDNet because of Mark Cuban. “Hard news needs backers who won't back down. Mark Cuban is such a leader,” he says. That may be true, but it’s not as if Rather had a lot of options post-CBS anyway. HDNet was just about the only network knocking on his door, and calling it a network is probably pretty generous. HDNet only reaches a fraction of American homes, and of that fraction only services an even smaller fraction which own high definition televisions and high definition cable receives. Dan is leaving an audience of millions to deliver the news to an audiences of dozens.
