Dan Rather is nearing a deal to leave CBS News after 44 years, and is reportedly considering an offer from the Dallas Mavericks’s owner, Mark Cuban, to do a weekly news program for Mr. Cuban’s HDNet cable channel.

Mr. Rather, 74, would be host and producer of the one-hour program, the New York Times reported June 16.

[Mr. Rather may announce his departure as early as today, according to Forbes’s Web site last night.]

Mr. Rather told the Times he had gotten several offers, including two from what he described as major networks, but said, “What I expect to do, what I hope to do, is bring this HDNet thing to fruition.”

He said he had received a three-year contract from Mr. Cuban’s company, but had not yet signed it, the Times reported. He was approached earlier this year by Cuban, a high-tech mogul and widely known owner of the Mavericks team.

HDNet is an all-high-definition television channel that currently carries original news and music programming as well as films and reruns of network programs. It is available to subscribers with high-definition access on certain cable systems and through satellite services including DirecTV and Dish.

Mr. Rather stepped down in March 2005 after 24 years as CBS’s anchorman. He took much of the blame for a discredited 2004 story that questioned President Bush’s military service, an episode that clouded his final months on the job. Since leaving the anchor chair, he has been a correspondent for “60 Minutes,” where he contributed eight stories last season. His last report, a profile of the Whole Foods market, ran on June 4.

In recent weeks he reportedly was told by CBS News, which he joined in 1962, that it would not extend his contract past its November expiration date. He and the network have since been trying to negotiate a deal that would enable him to leave early.