CBS Morning News

CBS Morning News is an American early morning television news program for CBS News that is broadcast on CBS. The program features late-breaking news stories, national weather forecasts and sports highlights. Since 2013, it has been anchored by Anne Marie Green, who concurrently anchored the CBS late-night news program Up to the Minute until its cancellation in September 2015.

The program is broadcast live at 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time (airing in the early timeslot to accommodate CBS stations that start their local morning newscasts at 4:30 a.m.), and is transmitted in a continuous half-hour tape delayed loop until 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, when CBS This Morning begins in the Pacific Time Zone. The program usually airs as a lead-in to local morning newscasts on most CBS stations, although in the few markets where a morning newscast is not produced by the CBS station, it may air in a two- to three-hour loop immediately before the start of This Morning. The show is updated for any breaking news occurring before 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time, while stations throughout the network will join CBS This Morning in all time zones past that time at their local discretion or network orders for live coverage.

History

Background

The CBS Morning News title was originally used as the name of a conventional morning news program that served as a predecessor to the network's current morning program, CBS This Morning. For most of the 1960s and 1970s, the program aired as a 60-minute hard news broadcast at 7:00 a.m., preceding Captain Kangaroo and airing opposite NBC's Today. Walter Cronkite and sportscaster Jim McKay both anchored the original CBS Morning News at one time. When CBS reformatted the early morning broadcast, the CBS Morning News became a pre-dawn 30-minute news broadcast.

CBS Early Morning News/current Morning News format

CBS Morning News title card while under the Leadership of Susan McGinnis (2002-08).

CBS Morning News title card from June 6, 2011 until September 19, 2015

The program first aired in its current format on October 4, 1982 as the CBS Early Morning News, originally co-anchored by Bill Kurtis and Diane Sawyer. Sawyer departed both programs in mid-1984, to be named a correspondent for 60 Minutes later that year. In her absence, Kurtis was joined by a rotating series of co-hosts, principally Maria Shriver, Meredith Vieira and Jane Wallace.

For the first half of 1985, Kurtis would continue to anchor the Early Morning News solo until March while continuing to co-anchor the Morning News with Phyllis George until July. Faith Daniels took over and would remain on the anchor desk, most of the time sharing the role with Forrest Sawyer (July to December 1985 and January to September 1987) and later Douglas Edwards and Charles Osgood, until Daniels left CBS to become anchor of competing early-morning newscast NBC News at Sunrise in 1990. Osgood would remain anchor of the CBS Morning News until June 1992, paired with Victoria Corderi from 1990 to 1991, Giselle Fernández through February 1992, and then with Meredith Vieira for the remainder of Osgood's run as co-anchor. After Osgood left the program in 1992, the anchor turnover continued, a situation that has continued to this day.

The program continued to maintain a two-anchor format until Thalia Assuras was appointed as anchor of the CBS Morning News in 1998, at which point the program switched to a single-anchor format, which it has had ever since. In March 2009, when Michelle Gielan was named anchor of Up to the Minute, the CBS Morning News became integrated with the overnight news program, using the same anchors on both programs.

In November 2010, CBS Morning News became the third and final early morning news program to begin broadcasting in high definition; its counterpart, Up to the Minute, continued to be broadcast in standard definition until November 2012, when the program converted to high definition. In November 2012, production of the CBS Morning News and Up to the Minute relocated in the CBS Broadcast Center. The CBS Morning News moved to the studio of the CBS Evening News, and Up to the Minute was moved to the Studio 57 facility, the same studio where CBS This Morning is also broadcast, until its cancellation on September 18, 2015.

On September 21, 2015, the CBS Morning News debuted a new look, including a new logo and updated on-air graphics that are similar to those from the network's morning news program CBS This Morning. In addition, production of the program moved to the newsroom of CBS This Morning, where broadcasts of CBSN are also produced. Its long-running counterpart, Up to the Minute, was replaced the same day by the CBS Overnight News.

On-air staff

Current

• Anne Marie Green (2013–present)
• Alison Harmelin (2014–present)

Former

See also

• The Early Show – Defunct morning news/talk program, which aired on CBS from 1999 to 2012.
• America This Morning – Competing early-morning news program on ABC, which debuted in 1982.

References