Tuesday night’s debut of Katie Couric in the anchor chair of The CBS Evening News brought on the usual Wednesday reviews - mostly positive, yet not overly enthusiastic - and paid off for the network in a big ratings spike. No surprises there.

It has been years since I watched an evening network newscast with any regularity, but I still knew what to anticipate from the 22 on-air minutes wrapped in the high-gloss patina of Katie Couric’s star power. Headlines. Correspondent reports. An on-air anchor interview.

On the surface, Katie’s newscast was splashier than Rather’s and certainly more colorful than Cronkite’s. What surprised me as the newscast unfolded was this CBS Evening News was less about remolding the institution and more about repositioning the medium itself as a news-reporting tool.

Yes, network television news Web sites are chocked with video, both Web “exclusive” (which previously said to me that the story wasn’t strong enough to make the on-air lineup) and those stories edited from previous newscasts. But in the case of CBS News, a new day has dawned – providing viewers “anytime, anywhere” access to the nightly broadcast via a live simulcast or the ability to personalize the newscast by “building your own newscast” from a series of menus.

During Tuesday’s broadcast, Couric turned the television into an Internet portal – no less than three times urging viewers to the CBS News Web site to see more, learn more or provide her with a memorable nightly farewell.

What this anchor and this newscast recognizes and embraces is that the traditional evening newscast can no longer be that at all. Couric & Co. knows that the future lies in using the broadcast to drive Web traffic and serve as a more relevant news-reporting organization to a wider audience – securing its future and building new credibility with a younger audience as a journalistic force.