CBS News Sunday Morning
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CBS News Sunday Morning is an early morning news program CBS airs on Sunday mornings. The typical time is from 9:00 to 10:30 A.M. EST, 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.
Sunday Morning is considered one of television's highest-quality news shows, and 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 (since 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.'
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 radio commentaries, with the closing I'll see you on the radio.
The program has been described as a "Sunday newspaper in a [television] tube". 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 news stories to fill up the program when there are 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. [link] [link] Despite the stereotype of the program appealing towards senior citizens [link], the show actually placed first among its time slot in the key 25-54 demographic. [link]
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 new one on a piccolo trumpet by former Tonight Show musical director Doc Severinsen. The current version is played by Wynton Marsalis. [link]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 Zukerman, Classical Music Correspondent, 1980-
- Billy Taylor, Jazz and Modern Music Correspondent, 1981-2002
- Bill Geist, Correspondent, 1987-
- Roger Welsch, Correspondent and Postcards From Nebraska Correspondent, 1988-
- John Leonard, Film, Book, and Drama Review, (The link is to a different John Leonard) 1988-
- Faith Daniels, Correspondent, 1988-1989
- Terence Smith, Correspondent, 1990-
- Tim Sample, Correspondent, 1993-
- Charles Osgood, Host, 1994-
- Nancy Giles, Correspondent, 2002-
- Serena Altschul, Correspondent, 2003-
- David Edelstein, Commentator, 2005-
External links
- [Official Website]
- [Article by former contributor about how Sunday Morning needs to extend its brand past just its network TV timeslot]
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