Denver-based HDNet and former CBS anchor Dan Rather are set to announce today that the veteran newsman will produce and host a show for the high-definition cable network co-founded by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

The details of the weekly program, Dan Rather Reports, will be revealed at a news conference at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif., said Philip Garvin, HDNet's general manager and chief operating officer.

The deal with Rather gives 5-year-old HDNet a blast of publicity. The network, which is carried on the high-definition programming packages of all the major cable- and satellite-TV providers except Comcast, reaches an estimated 3 million households.

"Hard news needs backers who won't back down," Rather said in a statement. "Mark Cuban is such a leader. As a team player, I intend to give Mark and HDNet all of the hard work, loyalty and fearless, high-quality reporting possible."

Rather, 74, left CBS in June, months before the end of his contract. He said at the time that he wasn't given substantive assignments at 60 Minutes after he stepped down as anchor of the CBS Evening News last year in the aftermath of the "Memogate" reporting scandal. The network couldn't authenticate documents used in a Rather 60 Minutes II report in September 2004 that questioned President Bush's National Guard service during the Vietnam War.

Rather made clear that his departure after 44 years was a bittersweet end to a career that covered the Vietnam War, Watergate and every major story since.

Cuban made his fortune in the early days of the Internet, selling multimedia and streaming site Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for $5 billion in 1999. He and Garvin founded HDNet at the Colorado Studios facility in Denver just as sales of high-definition TVs were starting to take off, but there was scant programming to showcase the technology.

HDNet shows a combination of reruns like Dead Like Me and Joan of Arcadia along with concerts, Major League Soccer games and NASCAR races. The network also has a weekly one-hour news program, HDNet World Report.