Rick Kaplan Expected To Take Over As Executive Producer

(CBS) Katie Couric will be in the anchor chair as usual but things may nonetheless be different, very soon, at the CBS Evening News. The network is expected to name Rick Kaplan as the new executive producer, taking over the broadcast as early as Monday.

For Kaplan, a news business heavyweight, the job would be a homecoming of sorts. He worked at CBS for a decade early in his career, including a period as an associate producer for the CBS Evening News when Walter Cronkite ruled the airwaves as the "most trusted man in America."

Kaplan has made no public comment on the report and a spokesperson for CBS News has also declined to comment.

Kaplan, who has won dozens of Emmys, has a unique breadth of experience as a journalist, network executive, and innovator, as the champion of numerous news and talk programs and the founder in 1987 of what became E! Entertainment Television.

Kaplan and Couric have been under the same corporate tent before: Kaplan was president of MSNBC for a two and a half year period ending last June, while Couric co-anchored NBC's "Today Show" with Matt Lauer and was a contributing anchor for "Dateline NBC."

Kaplan has also been president of CNN U.S., and was an executive producer at ABC News, heading up "World News Tonight" and "Nightline."

CBS News President Sean McManus is expected to announce Kaplan's hiring Thursday morning.

The current executive producer of the CBS Evening News, Rome Hartman, has been on the job since January 2006 and has also served as an adviser to McManus on various aspects of the news organization.

It is possible that Hartman, an award-winning producer with deep roots at CBS "60 Minutes" and elsewhere within the network, might take on a new role within CBS.