60 Minutes II, the show that brought us Memo-gate, has been euthanized.

Dan Rather, the featured correspondent and former CBS Evening News, keeps a gig -- he'll be reporting for the main 60 Minutes show.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

Mr. Moonves acted in the midst of a particularly volatile period in the Wednesday program's history. Eight months ago, the program touched off a journalistic firestorm by broadcasting a report critical of President Bush's Vietnam-era military service - a segment that was based on documents the network later acknowledged it could not authenticate. And yet, two days ago, the program received one of the top awards in broadcast journalism for an earlier, groundbreaking report about the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.

Mr. Moonves announced the cancellation at a breakfast meeting with journalists before presenting the network's fall schedule to advertisers. He said he was canceling the program not because of the report on Mr. Bush - which, an outside panel concluded, was rushed onto the air in an effort to beat competitors - but because the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes" was among the least-watched shows on CBS's prime-time schedule and drew an audience older than advertisers generally sought.

This season, its competition on Wednesday nights had principally consisted of the hit ABC drama "Lost," which drew an average of 15.6 million viewers each weeknight, nearly twice as many as the weekday "60 Minutes," according to Nielsen Media Research.

"This was a ratings call and not a content call," Mr. Moonves said. "I know that's a question."

The cancellation of the newsmagazine, which had a full-time staff of about 75 correspondents, editors, producers and technicians, is expected to set off a high-stakes game of musical chairs within a once-vaunted news division still feeling the effects of layoffs more than a decade ago. Some people may find work on other programs, but they could in the process dislodge other colleagues from their jobs on those shows, depending on seniority.