Viacom Incorporated’s CBS network canceled “60 Minutes Wednesday,” whose report on President Bush’s National Guard service was later discredited. The network added eight new programs to attract younger viewers.

CBS’s chairman, Leslie Moonves, said the show was canceled because of low ratings, not the report. Ranked 59th this season, “60 Minutes Wednesday” was one of four programs aimed at older viewers that were cut, including “Judging Amy” and “Joan of Arcadia.”

“It was a ratings call, not a content call,” Mr. Moonves said yesterday at a press conference in New York. “It was not only ‘not young,’ it was our oldest skewing show.”

Mr. Moonves wants a younger audience, which tends to be receptive to commercials and more likely to change spending habits. CBS, while the top-rated network among all American households, trails News Corporation’s Fox in attracting 18- to 49-year-old viewers. Changes in programming last year helped CBS rise to second place from third among young viewers.

“60 Minutes Wednesday” couldn’t verify a September report by Dan Rather that Mr. Bush received preferential treatment while in the National Guard. Mr. Rather, 73, stepped down in March as the anchor of the CBS Evening News and will continue working on the Sunday edition of “60 Minutes.”

The show “has been struggling and it was the center of controversy,” said Bill Carroll, vice president of programming at Katz Television Group, which advises TV stations. “If CBS has been critiqued in the past, it’s always been that they are your grandpa’s network.”

The network will add six new shows in September, including “How I Met Your Mother,” starring Neil Patrick Harris, who starred in the comedy “Doogie Howser, M.D.” CBS will also add the comedy “Out of Practice,” starring Henry Winkler, who played Fonzie on “Happy Days” in the 1970s, and Stockard Channing.

Among the new dramas, the network is debuting “The Ghost Whisperer” with Jennifer Love Hewitt as a young woman who communicates with the supernatural.

“We want to win it all,” Moonves, 56, said. “Do we want to win 18 to 49? Yes.”

CBS joins ABC, NBC, and Fox this week in pitching its fall schedule to advertisers in the so-called upfront market, when about $9.8 billion in television time will be sold for next season. The network may boost ad sales 6% to $2.63 billion, Credit Suisse First Boston analyst William Drewry said in a May 16 report. Ad rates at CBS may rise 5%, he said.

CBS airs six of the top 10 prime-time programs, more than any other network, and has been drawing more viewers to crime dramas such as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

Mr. Moonves, who will run CBS as a separate company if Viacom goes through with a proposed split of its assets, will present the programs to advertisers this afternoon at Carnegie Hall.

“Two and a Half Men,” which stars Charlie Sheen, will move into the Monday 9 p.m. time slot to replace “Everybody Loves Raymond,” which aired its finale Monday night after nine years. “Two and a Half Men” is the no. 12 show this year, with an average audience of 16.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“CSI,” which focuses on a team of forensics experts solving crimes in Las Vegas, is the top-rated program this year with an average 26.6 million viewers per episode, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The show is part of a Thursday-night lineup that includes “Survivor,” the no. 8 show this year, and “Without a Trace,” a missing-persons drama that ranks no. 7. Moonves said he’s not changing the Thursday night lineup because his programs draw 8 million more people than those aired on NBC that night.

The other new dramas airing in September include “Close to Home,” a legal drama from “CSI” producer Jerry Bruckheimer about a young female prosecutor who tries cases in her suburban community.

“Criminal Minds” stars Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson in a thriller about FBI profilers who analyze criminal minds and try to anticipate when the perpetrators will strike again.

Friday evening on CBS will be devoted to criminal and supernatural shows with the addition of “The Ghost Whisperer” and “Threshold,” about a team of experts who investigate the landing of an extraterrestrial craft in the Atlantic Ocean.

Two shows are slated to run later in the year, Mr. Moonves said. The first is a comedy starring Jenna Elfman as a secretary trying to find true love, titled “Everything I Know About Men.” The second, a drama called “The Unit” starring Dennis Haysbert, follows a team of special forces operatives in undercover missions.