Seven months after Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, exhorted his colleagues to re-engineer the network's evening newscast, the drafting process has reached an apparent milestone: the news division has begun to record and edit prototypes of how that broadcast could soon look.

Katie Couric, perhaps the biggest star on network news, whose contract with NBC's "Today" expires next year, was quoted in The New Yorker this month as saying she had met twice with Mr. Moonves and would make a decision on her future this fall.