By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --CBS News says it is retooling its streaming service to better incorporate programs and personalities from the television network.
The CBS service is debuting a new evening newscast and primetime lineup on Monday, from a newly constructed Manhattan-based studio, part of what promises to be an aggressive year of building for news-based products.
The hourlong evening newscast, beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern, will feature a rotating cast of anchors and originate from New York, Washington and Los Angeles. The streaming service will continue to air a rerun of Norah O'Donnell's "CBS Evening News" later in the evening.
For two hours beginning at 8 p.m., the service will choose from a number of programs that key off of TV, different ones each evening. They include "Person-to-Person," an O'Donnell-hosted interview series, and documentaries under the "CBS Reports" banner. There will also be shows based on uplifting news segments hosted by Tony Dokoupil, on-the-road features by Steve Hartman and "Eye on America" reports anchored by Michelle Miller.
"Here Comes the Sun" spotlights reporting from "CBS Sunday Morning," while the service will also air television episodes of "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours."
The service, available through the CBS News app, on Paramount+, has operated since 2014 but mostly as a "wheel" of straight, sometimes repeated, newscasts.
CBS is also emphasizing the integration of streaming products made for its local news stations, with a 13th, out of Miami, beginning operation Monday.
"The biggest thing we've done is integrate the network, the digital and the local," said Neeraj Khemlani, president and co-head of CBS News and Stations. "This is not about three separate products for three separate audiences."
The gradual transformation of CNN, Fox News and MSNBC primarily into political talk networks, frequently opinionated, gives the streaming service an open path, Khemlani said.
"We believe in balanced, unbiased reports," he said. "We believe in original reporting and exquisite storytelling. Those are the values of CBS News."
Khemlani denied the timing of CBS' facelift had anything to do with rivals. CNN, for example, has been on a hiring spree in preparation for the CNN+ streaming service to debut in a few months.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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