The Early Show
The Early Show is an American morning television show that aired on CBS from November 1, 1999 to January 7, 2012, and the ninth attempt at a morning news-talk program by the network since 1954. The program originally broadcast from the General Motors Building in New York City.
For the Art Pepper album, see The Early Show (album).The Early Show
Chris Bowman (1999–2002)
Sting (2002–2006)
James Horner (2006–2011)
James Trivers, Elizabeth Myers
& Alan James Pasqua (2011–2012)
United States
English
14
3,580
Batt Humphreys
120 minutes (two hours)
November 1, 1999 –
January 7, 2012
The Early Show, like many of its predecessors, traditionally placed third in the ratings, behind NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. Much like Today and its fellow NBC program The Tonight Show, the Early Show title was analogous to that of CBS's late-night talk show, The Late Show. Unlike CBS' other attempts at a morning news program (which emphasize hard news), The Early Show followed the format of its two other competitors, which have long used a lighter soft news, lifestyle and infotainment approach.
On November 15, 2011, CBS announced the cancellation of The Early Show, and replacement by a new morning program that CBS News chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes stated would "redefine the morning television landscape." The Early Show ended its twelve-year run on January 7, 2012, replaced three days later on January 9 by the second version of CBS This Morning.[1]
History of CBS's morning news shows[edit]
The Morning Show (1954)[edit]
CBS' first attempt at a morning program debuted on March 15, 1954, with The Morning Show, originally hosted by Walter Cronkite and very similar in format to Today (which also ran for two hours from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time until it was reduced to one hour to accommodate the premiere of Captain Kangaroo in 1955). Additional hosts over the years included Jack Paar, John Henry Faulk and Dick Van Dyke. Paar, the most successful of them in drawing an audience, made significant changes in the tone of the program during his tenure as host, casting it into a talk program with some infotainment elements but featuring an emphasis on humor and conversation, reminiscent of the kind of morning radio show he had done prior to World War II. In 1956, Paar was moved from The Morning Show to his own late-morning talk program on the network, which aired after Captain Kangaroo. (Paar left CBS to take over NBC's The Tonight Show in 1957.)
History[edit]
Gumbel, Clayson, McEwen and Chen (November 1, 1999–2002)[edit]
The Early Show began on November 1, 1999 (around the time when Viacom, a former CBS division, had purchased the network) when CBS executives successfully lured former Today host Bryant Gumbel to head up the broadcast, teamed with ABC News correspondent Jane Clayson. Unlike with This Morning, CBS asked its affiliates to carry the two-hour program in its entirety. Julie Chen read the news, while Mark McEwen of Live by Request, the sole holdover from CBS This Morning, did the weather. Initial ratings were not encouraging, and were actually lower than those of CBS This Morning.[19][20] Gumbel left on May 17, 2002,[21] and shortly thereafter Clayson and McEwen were replaced.
Clayson may be best known for her awkward confrontation with Early Show food and style contributor Martha Stewart during this period; Stewart was involved in the ImClone stock trading case, but retained her Early Show contributor duties during the initial stages of the controversy. CBS required Stewart to address the issue as a condition of keeping those contributor duties. Stewart, upon consulting her legal team, agreed to take questions on-air, but not in a separate interview. As a result, during one of Stewart's usual live cooking segments (in June 2002), Clayson, who normally assisted Stewart with preparing the meal, asked her to comment on her involvement with ImClone and her selling of company stock just one day before an application for a new cancer drug developed by the pharmaceutical company was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration; a visibly uncomfortable Stewart, obsessively chopping vegetables for a salad, evaded Clayson's questions, citing her inability to comment on an ongoing investigation (Stewart was indicted in 2003, tried and convicted in 2004, and served five months in federal prison for her involvement in the case).[22][23] Stewart stopped contributing to the program after the appearance, which was immortalized in an NBC TV-movie of Stewart's life that aired a few months later (with Cybill Shepherd playing the role of Stewart).
Smith, Storm, Chen, Syler and Price (October 2002–December 2006)[edit]
On October 28, 2002, The Early Show overhauled its hosting staff. The new team consisted of Chen, Harry Smith (former host of Biography and CBS This Morning), Hannah Storm (former commentator for NBC Sports), Rene Syler (who joined the program after serving as a news anchor at CBS' owned-and-operated station KTVT in Dallas), and weatherman Dave Price (joining the program after a run as a morning meteorologist at New York City Fox O&O WNYW), who also worked at WCBS-TV for some time after joining The Early Show. To keep affiliates happy, CBS went back to the local/national hybrid format originated on CBS This Morning in 1997.[24] The program also had a number of "correspondents" who conducted short segments on specific issues, including Martha Stewart (until not long after the aforementioned segment with Jane Clayson), Martha Quinn, Bobby Flay and Bob Vila, among others. In 2004, Susan Koeppen became the program's consumer correspondent.
On October 30, 2006, The Early Show received a revamp, featuring new graphics (with a new blue and orange color scheme instead of blue and yellow) and music similar to that used on the CBS Evening News (which were also rolled out on Up to the Minute and the CBS Morning News in early October). On December 4, 2006, it was announced that Rene Syler would leave the show by the end of the month; her last show was December 22, 2006.
Smith, Storm, Chen, Mitchell, and Price (December 2006–December 2007)[edit]
On December 7, 2006, CBS News named Russ Mitchell (who had been co-anchor of the program's Saturday edition since its inception as CBS News Saturday Morning in 1997) as the news anchor for the program starting January 2, 2007. On November 28, 2007, it was announced that Hannah Storm was leaving as the program's co-anchor; her last day was December 7, 2007.
Smith, Rodriguez, Chen, Mitchell and Price (January 2008–January 2010)[edit]
On December 5, 2007, CBS announced that Maggie Rodriguez (who had joined the program earlier that year as anchor of its Saturday edition) would succeed Storm as co-anchor. During that month, the CBS Evening News shared its studio/set with The Early Show. The Early Show itself debuted a new set on January 7, 2008, when it also abandoned the aforementioned local/national hybrid format, opting to require its stations carry the entire two-hour broadcast. Ratings for The Early Show dropped with the institution of these changes. However, the gap between the program and second-place Good Morning America remained virtually consistent as all three morning shows saw similar ratings erosion.[25]
On April 16, The Early Show scored a coup with the broadcast of a live musical performance by Susan Boyle. The Early Show enjoyed a relatively successful May sweeps, racking up a 5% increase in total viewership year-to-year while remaining flat in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic, at a time when both Today and Good Morning America were shedding viewers to the tune of 3 and 4% respectively.[26][27]
Howard Kurtz's Washington Post profile of CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez said her addition to the program accounts for "an uptick in the ratings, lifting spirits at the broadcast". Rodriguez landed some high-profile interviews with the grandparents of Caylee Anthony, Levi Johnston, and disgraced former Roman Catholic priest Alberto Cutié, who later became an Episcopal minister. Rodriguez stated that "If [I] were to program a show for my viewing pleasure, I would make it all news ...[B]ut we're programming for all of America. We have to include Jon and Kate — regardless of whether I personally care, they're on the cover of every magazine. You can't be so highbrow that you only cover hard news. I'm not a journalistic snob." In addition to her duties on the morning show, Rodriguez regularly filled in for Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News.[28]
On January 13, 2010, CBS announced that news anchor Russ Mitchell would exit The Early Show at the end of the week, leaving a gap in the program's anchor lineup. He became the national correspondent for CBS and would remain as anchor of the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News. Around this time, Koeppen left The Early Show to become a primary news anchor for CBS-owned KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh; her spot as consumer correspondent was not replaced.
Smith, Rodriguez, Chen, Hill and Price (January–December 2010)[edit]
In January 2010, Erica Hill became the program's news update anchor, joining Smith, Rodriguez, Price and now features correspondent Chen.
The Early Show became the last morning network news/talk program to begin broadcasting in high definition on April 26, 2010. The Evening News control room was to be used to base the program, as construction was under way for a new control room for The Early Show at the General Motors Building.[29] New graphics were now overlaid to accommodate added screen space, and were also used throughout other CBS News programs.
Wragge, Hill, Chen, Glor and Castro (January–September 2011)[edit]
Smith, Price and Rodriguez were fired from the program in December 2010. Erica Hill and Chris Wragge (who previously anchored the Saturday edition) were appointed as anchors of the weekday Early Show on January 3, 2011. Marysol Castro was also added as a weather anchor, replacing Dave Price; while Julie Chen remained a part of the staff, presenting additional feature stories, with Jeff Glor taking Hill's spot as news anchor. Chen, the wife of CBS President & CEO Les Moonves, was the only one to stay with the program since its inception before leaving the full-time anchor position to become host of The Talk in late 2010; however, she remained with The Early Show as a special contributing anchor.
In March 2011, the program introduced a redesigned set, which included a new anchor desk backdrop, a new reporter area and a blue color scheme. On September 2, 2011, it was announced that Marysol Castro would be leaving her post as weather anchor effective immediately.[30]
Wragge, Hill and Glor (September 2011–January 2012)[edit]
After Castro's departure, the hosts had cut directly to local CBS affiliates to provide forecast cut-ins (with a narrated national outlook available to stations that did not provide cut-ins due to the absence of a news department), making CBS the only one of the three major broadcast morning shows without a national forecast segment.[31]
In 2011, the program had begun focusing on hard news in contrast to the other network morning news programs, which show a mix of hard news, lighter news and infotainment. Coverage consisted of national and international news, including occasional town halls with political leaders and in-depth coverage of major events.[32]
Ratings[edit]
CBS has been the perennial third-place finisher in the morning race since 1976, placing second only a few times in the past 30 years. CBS surpassed ABC's Good Morning America for second place during the weeks of January 17, 1977 and December 28, 1998, running behind first-place Today which was in first place both times. However, The CBS Morning News outrated Today, then often in second place (with Good Morning America in first), for a few weeks in 1984 while Today co-host Jane Pauley was on maternity leave.[35]
In September 2007, CBS sought to get The Early Show out of the ratings basement by hiring Shelley Ross, who previously served as executive producer of Good Morning America from 1999 to 2004. Significant changes were made to the program as Ross asserted her influence; on January 7, 2008, the network began requiring affiliates to air the program in its entirety, ending the local-national hybrid format and restricting the local news inserts to :25 and :55 minutes past the hour.[36] CBS reportedly viewed the removal of those breaks as vital to creating a national profile for the program.
However, some CBS affiliates continued to air the entire program on a sister station in order to continue to airing a locally produced morning newscast during The Early Show's timeslot; WWL-TV in New Orleans never aired The Early Show, any of its previous versions or its successor CBS This Morning, opting to instead air the final two hours of its Eyewitness Morning News broadcast from 5:00 to 9:00 a.m. instead; however after former owner Belo acquired that station in 2007, The Early Show began airing in New Orleans on MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL. WKRC-TV in Cincinnati began airing the full two-hour Early Show broadcast, while moving the third hour of its local morning newscast to the station's CW-affiliated subchannel. Salt Lake City's KUTV (which was formerly owned by the network until 2007) continued to preempt the program's first hour despite the network's insistence. KOTV in Tulsa and WFMY in Greensboro, North Carolina began airing the program in its entirety on a one-hour delay at 8:00 a.m. to accommodate a 7:00 a.m. hour of their local newscasts (in the case of KOTV, it chose to move the 8:00 a.m. hour of its morning newscast to its CW-affiliated sister station KQCW to comply with the new requirements).
Industry insiders considered Shelley Ross' influence to be a serious threat to raising the profile of the program to turn it into a true competitor to NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. However, Ross was fired as executive producer after only six months, following frequent feuds with staff (particularly Smith and Chen), who reportedly informed management that either Ross would have to go or they would resign on their own.[37]
Despite the change in staff in 2011, the program remained mired in third place, with a total average viewership of around 2 to 2.5 million viewers per week.[38] The program also faced pressure from network management to take advantage of the redefining of CBS News as more of a hard news organization after the end of Katie Couric's tenure at the CBS Evening News, asking the program's staff to take advantage of stories presented on 60 Minutes and the CBS Evening News and expand upon them on the morning program rather than following the lead of Today and GMA to the letter.[39]
Theme music[edit]
The debut theme for The Early Show was a typical opener for an American morning news program. Created by Chris Bowman, the song was called "Sunrise".[40] Bowman created two versions of the song that were used until 2002 when Bryant Gumbel left the show.[41][42] When the show reformatted with new hosts and set, an instrumental version of the same-titled track from Sting's 1999 hit album, "Brand New Day" until late October 2006, when it was replaced by a variant of the James Horner theme originally composed that year for the CBS Evening News. On January 7, 2008, as part of CBS's attempt to relaunch the show with new hosts and set, an updated version of Horner's composition was introduced; the theme was modified a number of times after the format change. On June 27, 2011, The Early Show began using a slower-tempoed version of the CBS Evening News theme by Trivers-Myers Music (the original version of which was first used on the evening news program from 1987 to 1991, before being revived in 2011 upon Scott Pelley taking over as anchor of the broadcast).
International broadcasts[edit]
In Australia, The Early Show aired on Network 10 on weekday mornings from 4.00 a.m. under the title "The CBS Early Show", with the Friday edition being held over to the following Monday. A national weather map of Australia was inserted during local affiliate weather cutaways; however, no local news segments were inserted into the broadcast. Unlike the Seven Network's airing of NBC's Today and the Nine Network's airing of Good Morning America, The Early Show was not condensed or edited for broadcast by Ten. It was, however, pre-empted in most regional areas in favor of paid and religious programming.
Awards[edit]
In 2010, The Early Show was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding TV Journalism Segment" for the segment "Reverend's Revelation: Minister Speaks Out About Being Transgender".[43]