modern YORK -- During nearly each s...

modern YORK -- During nearly each stop of her six-city "listening tour" this summer Katie Couric said, viewers told her they wanted the network evening moderns to be an hour instead of just 30 minutes.

Couric, who becomes anchorwoman of the "CB Evening News" forward Sept. 5, said Monday that the ask speaks to a hunger for recents and information.

Her predecessor, Dan Rather, talked often about a desire to do a longer newscast if it were not that it never happened.

"Every time the bulk of mankind said that, I would rehearse them, 'As Dan Rather would say, that dog won't hunt' " she said. "It would be fantastic if it could and I think at more [i]or[/i] less point a network will do a prime- time moderns hour every night."

Network affiliates would be loath to give up the half-hour many times used to air profitable syndicated programs like "Jeopardy" or "Entertainment Tonight."

"I told them to call Pat O'Brien," Couric jok about "The Insider" host

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