• by Wayne Friedman , October 27, 2005

CBS is finally taking care of its flagging CBS News division, replacing CBS News President Andrew Heyward with CBS Sports President Sean McManus, who will hold down both jobs.

After holding the job for nearly ten years, Heyward will step down after months of trouble. Heyward's job has been in question ever since "60 Minutes Wednesday" aired an erroneous story in 2004 about President Bush and the Texas Air National Guard, in which Dan Rather was the on-air reporter. That flawed story eventually pushed Dan Rather into early retirement.

But that hasn't been CBS' only problem concerning news programming. Even before the incident, CBS's "Evening News" program had been in last place in ratings for some time. When Rather retired, CBS Corp. Chairman Les Moonves talked openly about revamping the early evening news program.

Media executives say McManus is a surprise choice, because he has no news background. He had been on the job for just about the same time as Heyward--about ten years.

But McManus isn't the first executive to hold down presidents' positions of both news and sports divisions for a network. Roone Arledge held the positions of president for both ABC News and ABC Sports in the 70s and 80s.

McManus began working at ABC Sports in the 70s. He moved to NBC Sports as vp of program planning and development. In 1987, he joined TV sports producer Trans World International, a division of the sports marketing company International Management Group.

In December 1996, McManus joined CBS, replacing Dave Kenin as president--and one of its first goals was to get back NFL football. He did so the very next year.