CBS News Sunday Morning
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| CBS News Sunday Morning | |
|---|---|
 Sunday Morning's Sun logo for Sunday news used from 1992 to 2002 |
|
| Format | Newsmagazine |
| Starring | Charles Osgood (1994–present) Charles Kuralt (1979–1994) Anthony Mason (sub-host) |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
CBS News Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | 1979 – present |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
CBS News Sunday Morning is an American television morning news magazine program broadcast Sunday mornings on the CBS network. The show is typically aired from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. ET, though west coast stations often air it earlier due to conflicts with sports programming later in the day. Sunday Morning premiered in 1979. Original host Charles Kuralt hosted the program until 1994, when he was replaced by Charles Osgood. Anthony Mason is a substitute host.
Sunday Morning's style of high-quality television newsmagazine programming is a throwback to the "old guard" CBS style of thoughtful news broadcasting. The style was briefly copied by the weekday CBS Morning News broadcast anchored by Bob Schieffer as Morning (Kuralt eventually took over the daily role). However, the show's then-limited 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. ET air time (the long-running Captain Kangaroo was entrenched in the 8 o'clock hour) hampered its ability to compete with NBC and ABC's rival two-hour morning shows, though it expanded to an hour and a half in 1981. The CBS weekday program, now a full two hours on the East Coast, is now known as The Early Show.
Contents |
[edit] Format
Each episode follows a sort of story totem pole in the center of the CBS soundstage. Each story covered in a given episode has a glass plate with its headline on this pole, which the camera follows after Osgood's introductions. Osgood introduces each story with a short monologue, then sends the show out to the pre-taped segment. The show usually ends with a 60 second scene of a tranquil scene of plants and/or animals. After that, a subtle plug is delivered by Osgood for his The Osgood File radio commentaries, with the closing "I'll see you on the radio."
The program follows a format similar to a Sunday newspaper in a television show. Notably, Sunday Morning includes significant coverage of the fine and performing arts, including coverage of topics usually not covered in network news, such as architecture, painting, ballet, opera, and classical music, though increasingly more popular forms of music have been included. The program chooses to ask untraditional questions of guests; for instance, it asked actor Brad Pitt about his love of architecture, and Grant Hill about his painting collection. Television essays similar to the kinds delivered on PBS also show up, and the program generally has a stable of positive and negative news stories to fill up the program when there is no breaking news of note. Story lengths are longer and the pace of the program is considerably relaxed from the weekday Early Show. Recurring segments occur with commentators Ben Stein and Nancy Giles delivering their opinion, and with correspondent Bill Geist doing human interest stories. [1] [2] Despite the stereotype of the program appealing towards senior citizens [3], the show actually placed first among its time slot in the key 25-54 demographic, beating all of the Sunday morning talk shows. [4]
On one occasion, the program has served as a showcase for an entire classical music program. This was in April 1986, when it presented a live broadcast of Vladimir Horowitz's historic Moscow piano recital. For that presentation only, the program departed from its usual newsmagazine format and devoted the entire ninety minutes to a complete presentation of the recital. Because the recital was given at 4:00 P.M. Moscow time, CBS was able to broadcast it at 9:00 A.M., E.D.T. The presentation was such a critical and popular success that it was repeated only two months later, and subsequently released on VHS and DVD.
[edit] Production
The program is marked by its distinctive "Sun" logo. In addition, in between some segments images of the sun in various forms also appear. The show's theme is the trumpet fanfare "Abblasen", attributed to Gottfried Reiche. A recording of the piece on baroque trumpet by Don Smithers was used as the show's theme for many years, until producers decided to replace the vinyl recording with a digital one on a piccolo trumpet by former Tonight Show musical director Doc Severinsen. The current version is played by Wynton Marsalis. [5]
[edit] 25th Anniversary
On January 25, 2004, CBS News celebrated the 25th anniversay of Sunday Morning with clips and highlights from the show's past 25 years. Host Charles Osgood revealed clips from former host Charles Kuralt.
[edit] Cast
Sorted chronologically by start date
- Charles Kuralt, Host, 1979-1994
- Ron Powers, Film, Book, and Drama Reviews, 1979-1988
- Martha Teichner, Correspondent, 1979-
- Eugenia Zuckerman, Classical Music Correspondent, 1980-
- Billy Taylor, Jazz and Modern Music Correspondent, 1981-
- Bill Geist, Correspondent, 1987-
- Roger Welsch, Correspondent and Postcards From Nebraska Correspondent, 1988-
- John Leonard, Film, Book, and Drama Review, 1988-2005
- Faith Daniels, Correspondent, 1988-1989
- Terence Smith, Correspondent, 1990-
- Tim Sample, Correspondent, 1993-
- Charles Osgood, Host, 1994-
- Nancy Giles, Commentator, 2002-
- Serena Altschul, Correspondent, 2003-
- David Edelstein, Film and Television Critic, 2005-
- Erin Moriarty, Correspondent,
- Ben Stein, Commentator,
- Rita Braver, National Correspondent 1998-
- Bill Flanagan, Rock Music Critic
- Anthony Mason, substitute host
- Harry Smith, substitute host
