CBS News Sunday Morning
CBS News Sunday Morning (frequently shortened to Sunday Morning) is an American television newsmagazine that has aired on CBS since January 28, 1979. Created by Robert Northshield and E.S. "Bud" Lamoreaux III, and original host Charles Kuralt, the 90-minute program currently airs Sundays between 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. EST, and between 6:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. PST. Since October 9, 2016, the program has been hosted by Jane Pauley, who also hosts news segments. Her predecessor, Charles Osgood, hosted Sunday Morning for twenty-two years (and is the program's longest-serving host) after taking over from Kuralt on April 10, 1994.
CBS News Sunday Morning
Sunday Morning
Robert Northshield E.S."Bud" Lamoreaux III
- Ken Sable
- William M. Brady
- Nora Gerard
Charles Kuralt
(1979–1994)
Charles Osgood
(1994–2016)
Jane Pauley
(2016–present)
"Abblasen" by Wynton Marsalis
United States
English
40
- Robert Northshield
- Linda Mason
- Missie Rennie
- Rand Morrison
63 minutes (with commercials)
January 28, 1979 –
present
History[edit]
Charles Kuralt era (1979–1994)[edit]
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt as host. CBS News Sunday Morning was originally conceived to be a broadcast version of a Sunday newspaper magazine supplement, most typified by The New York Times Magazine. For the first few years of Sunday Morning's run, CBS News' weekday morning broadcasts were similarly branded as Monday Morning through Friday Morning respectively, and were produced on the same set. However, these broadcasts emphasized hard news as opposed to Sunday Morning's focus on feature stories.
Originally anchored by Bob Schieffer,[1] Kuralt eventually took over the daily role, and was for a short time joined by Diane Sawyer as co-host. However, the weekday program's then-limited 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. EST air time (the long-running Captain Kangaroo was entrenched in the 8:00 a.m. hour) hampered its ability to compete with Today on NBC and Good Morning America on ABC, though it expanded to ninety minutes (from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. EST) in 1981 and was renamed simply Morning.
In 1982, the weekday version was extended to two hours (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.) and reverted to its previous title as the CBS Morning News, adopting a different set and distinct graphics in the process; by March, Kuralt had been replaced by Bill Kurtis. Meanwhile, Kuralt continued hosting Sunday Morning until April 3, 1994, when he retired after fifteen years and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Although the attempt to apply the same format to weekday broadcasts proved unsuccessful, the Sunday broadcast survived and retains its original format, including elements of its original graphic and set design. Long after the daily editions ended, Sunday Morning's opening sequence continued to display all seven days of the week until the early 2000s.
Charles Osgood era (1994–2016)[edit]
Osgood's first broadcast as host was on April 10, 1994. Ultimately, his tenure of twenty-two years as host exceeded Kuralt's fifteen. Osgood's final broadcast as host was on September 25, 2016.
Among Osgood's personal trademarks were his bow-tie, his weekly signoff ("Until then, I'll see you on the radio") and his propensity for delivering his commentaries in whimsical verse. For example, when the United States Census Bureau invented a designation for cohabitant(s) as "Person(s) of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters", or "POSSLQ", Osgood turned it into a pronounceable three-syllable word and composed a prospective love poem that included these lines, which he later used as the title of one of his books:[2]
Production[edit]
The program is marked by its distinctive Sun of May-style logo, which is prominent in the program's title sequence. 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 a 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 of a piccolo trumpet by Doc Severinsen; the current version is played by Wynton Marsalis.[11]
Sunday Morning and CBS' other morning news programs, under varying names and formats, have remained fully separate productions, though with occasional cross-promotion and some sharing of correspondents. On August 31, 2021, the network announced that its weekday morning show would be relaunched for the latest time as CBS Mornings and its Saturday counterpart as CBS Saturday Morning. Under this latest reformatting, both programs have taken on some branding elements of Sunday Morning like its logo and "Abblasen" fanfare, although with a more contemporary feel and aspects of CBS's new corporate branding.[12] Its second hour also features a larger focus on long-form stories not unlike Sunday Morning.[12][13]
On May 21, 2023, Sunday Morning received an updated logo and graphics package to align itself with the CBS corporate branding, while preserving the program's existing look and feel in a refreshed form rather than using the versions used by CBS Mornings.[14]
Controversy[edit]
Neurologist Steven Novella and paranormal investigator Joe Nickell wrote in separate Skeptical Inquirer articles about Erin Moriarty's lack of skepticism and "complete journalistic fail" over a March 2018 segment in which she showed clips of spoon-bender Uri Geller from the 1980s performing "'psychic parlor tricks'" but instead of explaining to her audience that Geller had been debunked many times, with no mention of the work of James Randi. Novella stated of Moriarty "is (most likely) just an old-school journalist who thinks of paranormal pieces as 'fluff' pieces that don't require journalistic rigor."[16] In another segment Moriarty interviewed psychic Angela Dellafiora Ford, who claims that she "psychically tracked down fugitive drug smuggler Charlie Jordan in 1989." Nickell writes that Moriarty "simply takes Ford at her word" and "gushes" over her. Nickell states that Ford's claims are an example of "retrofitting" and incorrect.[17]
Center for Inquiry (CFI) editor Kendrick Frazier wrote of his disappointment that CBS would air a pro-paranormal segment with Geller and a psychic detective. They also classified parapsychologist Dean Radin as a scientist, which he is not. In a tweet the next day in response to criticism, Moriarty wrote, "We reported on government experiments with the paranormal – supported by declassified Govt documents. We gave time to both those involved and scientists." Frazier responded, "Just because some part of the government initiated a bizarre little research program at some point in the past, that is not itself a validation of the claims it was studying." Further research by CFI timed the segment and "found it more than 97 percent pro-paranormal and only 3 percent skeptical".[18] In a press release, CFI called the Sunday Morning segment a "regrettable lapse ... in the ... usually objective and reliable coverage." and called on the program to "take steps to correct the record" and to "provide a more truthful and scientifically rigorous view of this topic."[19]
Nielsen ratings[edit]
The program's special food-themed edition on November 24, 2013, earned Sunday Morning one of its highest ratings since February 4, 1996, watched by over 6.25 million total viewers.[21]
This was surpassed by the January 18, 2015, broadcast, which had a total viewership of 6.79 million viewers, the second largest audience the program earned since January 23, 1994.[22]
March 1, 2015: 6.63 million viewers (sixth-largest audience since the 1987 advent of people meters).[23]
March 22, 2020: 6.82 million viewers (largest audience since 1994).[24]