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The Early Show, like many of its predecessors, has traditionally run last in the ratings to its rivals, NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. Much like NBC's The Today Show and The Tonight Show, the title The Early Show is analogous to that of CBS's late-night talk show, The Late Show.
Next came Good Morning! with Will Rogers, Jr., which lasted 14 months before being replaced from April–December 1957 by The Morning Show, a variety program hosted by Jimmy Dean. The program aired from 7–7:45 a.m. ET followed by a 15-minute news broadcast until 8 a.m. with Stuart Novins under the CBS Morning News title, preceding Captain Kangaroo.
On August 6, 1973, after Hart left for NBC, in an effort to emulate The Today Show, Rudd was teamed up with former Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn. Unfortunately for CBS, within days the hugely-publicized pairing of what was dubbed by the press "the beauty and the grouch" (referring to Quinn and Rudd respectively) turned out to be a disaster. Quinn was gone after six months, leaving after the February 1, 1974 telecast. A much more experienced correspondent, Bruce Morton, later took over the Washington desk, remaining there until 1977. During that period, the newscast had evolved into a well-crafted package delivered in a straightforward manner, much like Cronkite's evening newscast. Despite the anchor turnover through the years, the broadcast had set a consistent tone which emphasized news and ideas over celebrity gossip or self-help tips. The anchor desk was subsequently shared by the team of Lesley Stahl and Richard Threlkeld, while Morton and Rudd returned to both feature reporting and commentary respectively.
By the fall of 1982, Captain Kangaroo had disappeared from the daily schedule and the new team of Kurtis and Sawyer were anchoring three hours of news in the morning, as they were also seen on the CBS Early Morning News an hour earlier.
Their teamwork helped boost the show's ratings, albeit briefly; George Merlis, a former GMA producer hired to revamp the broadcast, is also credited by most network insiders with nearly doubling viewership numbers by March 1983. The numbers continued to climb during the summer; during one week in August 1983 it passed The Today Show for the second place spot behind GMA, and was in closing distance behind the latter program for the #1 spot before it dropped back to third place again. After Merlis was relieved from his duties for his trouble, Sawyer, tired of the morning grind, left in the fall of 1984 to become the first female correspondent on 60 Minutes.
CBS News correspondents Jane Wallace and Meredith Vieira briefly alternated as interim co-host in an on-air try-out that lasted several months, but both were passed over for the permanent spot. Instead, CBS settled for former Miss America and NFL Today co-host Phyllis George, who was given a three-year contract following a mere two-week trial run. There was little chemistry between George and Kurtis onscreen and the show fared poorly. The low point of her very brief tenure came on May 14, 1985 during George's interview with false rape accuser Cathleen Crowell Webb and the man whom she had falsely accused, Gary Dotson. In an effort to get the two to make amends to each other, George made a simple suggestion: "How about a hug?" Both Webb and Dotson graciously refused. That infamous interview alienated audiences and was blasted by critics, helping to put an unpleasant close to George's television career at that point. A very unhappy Bill Kurtis subsequently departed from the show and resigned from CBS News in July, returning to Chicago and his old anchor spot at WBBM-TV. Once again Bob Schieffer served as a brief replacement. Phyllis George eventually left CBS for good that fall.
Maria Shriver, who had joined CBS as a West Coast feature reporter in 1983, and Forrest Sawyer, new to the network, were named co-anchors of The CBS Morning News August 30, 1985. After a respectable year but still placed third in the ratings, Shriver and Sawyer made their last appearance on the show August 1, 1986, after CBS announced that the Morning News timeslot would leave control of the news division and be supervised by a newly created unit in the CBS Broadcast Group. Prodded by network affiliates, CBS decided that an entertainment format might work better against Good Morning America and Today, and planning began for a new show that would come to be called The Morning Program. Bruce Morton and Faith Daniels became the first in a string of substitutes to host Morning News until it left the air.
"The CBS Morning News was simply shot dead," wrote Jonathan Alter in Newsweek. "Underappreciated coanchors Forrest Sawyer and Maria Shriver left the air with a classy farewell after the network's announcement that the perennially lagging show would be canceled by the end of the year."
"Throughout the industry there is shock and derision for the way CBS has handled Morning News, so long its problem child," Tom Shales reported in The Washington Post. "Competitors are saying the Morning News fiasco is a symptom of a new disarray in CBS News, and some question whether current CBS News executives will all be able to ride out the storm."
Stewart's participation garnered headlines on June 25, 2002, due to her obsessively chopping vegetables for a salad while refusing to answer Clayson's questions regarding her stock fraud scandal – Stewart stopped contributing to the program after the appearance, which was immortalized in an NBC TV-movie of Stewart's life a few months later.
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 those used on the CBS Evening News (which were also used starting in early October on Up to the Minute and the CBS Morning News). 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).
On April 16, The Early Show scored a coup with the broadcast of British pop music sensation Susan Boyle singing live for an American TV audience. Not surprisingly, The Early Show enjoyed a relatively successful May sweeps, racking up a 5 percent increase in year-to-year total viewers and remaining flat in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic, at a time when both NBC's Today Show and ABC's Good Morning America were shedding viewers to the tune of 3 and 4 percent respectively.
Howard Kurtz's WaPo profile of CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez says her addition to the program accounts for "an uptick in the ratings, lifting spirits at the broadcast." In recent months, Rodriguez has landed some high-profile interviews with the Caylee Anthony grandparents, Levi Johnston, and disgraced former Miami priest, Alberto Cutié. The scandal beat might not be her favorite, but Rodriguez understands that it's often what her audience gets excited about: "If I were to program a show for my viewing pleasure, I would make it all news", said Rodriguez. "But we're programming for all of America. We have to include Jon and Kate [Gosselin] — 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 morning show duties, the Miami transplant had also regularly been filling in as an anchor for CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
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 lineup for the perennially third-place CBS morning show. He became the national correspondent for CBS and would continue to be the anchor of the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News.
The Early Show began broadcasting in high definition on April 26, 2010, becoming the last morning network news/talk program to do so. The Evening News control room will be used, as construction is under way for The Early Show's new control room at the General Motors Building. New graphics are now overlaid to accommodate added screen space, and are also used throughout other CBS News programs.
News anchor Erica Hill made her maternity leave from March to July, just in time when anchor Maggie Rodriguez made her maternity leave. Then latter made her comeback in September 2010. esent.
CBS News Business and Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis is the new Saturday co-anchor, with Russ Mitchell of the CBS Evening News. Betty Nguyen the anchor of the CBS Morning News deputises in the News Anchor role. Jennifer Ashton, M.D. is the medical correspondent and HealthWatch reporter, Susan Koeppen is the consumer correspondent and Bobby Flay was the resident chef until November 1, 2010. Ayla Brown—daughter of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown—was named a special contributor in April 2010.
Ratings for this team have declined while the Today Show and Good Morning America continue their winning streak with both morning shows closing the gap with each other. The Early Show now ranks a distant third in the ratings behind second place Good Morning America. The gap between the two shows is now more than 2 million viewers, its biggest in recent years.
Good Morning America beat the new The Early Show by 2.01 million total viewers and by 590,000 adult (25-54) viewers for the week of February 14 – February 18. In addition, GMA expanded its Total Viewer lead over the CBS program by +2% week-to-week and by +23% year-to-year. In March 2011, The Early Show debuted a partially new set. The new set included a new anchor desk backdrop, a new reporter area, and a blue color scheme.
Until the weekday shake-up at the end of 2010, it was anchored by Chris Wragge of WCBS and Erica Hill. Beginning January 8, 2011 Russ Mitchell returned to co-anchor with Rebecca Jarvis while WCBS' chief weathercaster Lonnie Quinn will continue as weather anchor and CBS Morning News anchor Betty Nguyen serves as news anchor. The show features news and lifestyle segments, including two holdovers from the original CBS Saturday Morning: Chef on a Shoestring (a cooking segment) and The Second Cup Cafe (a music segment).
As of 2008, The Saturday Early Show no longer carries a separate name from the weekday edition, and is introduced simply as The Early Show. The program is broadcast live beginning at 8:00 a.m. ET on Saturday mornings from the GM Building on Fifth Avenue in New York City, across the street from Central Park. It airs at various times through the country on most CBS stations. However, depending on the time zone it may or may not air (some CBS affiliates skip the Saturday morning edition for local newscasts, and some push up the timeslot of the Saturday morning children's program block after the newscast if it ends before 9:00 a.m. in order to make up for it).
The format allows for news and weather cut-ins; not all affiliates provide local coverage. Viewers at stations that do not provide coverage see informal conversation among the anchors during the news cut-ins and a series of graphics showing the weather in various cities during the weather cut-ins. Ira Joe Fisher and, initially, Lonnie Quinn, would read some of the forecast aloud while chatting with people in the audience outside the building. The graphics now run with bed music and no voice-over.
Unlike its competitors The Today Show and Good Morning America, The Early Show does not carry a Sunday edition, nor are there any plans for one in the near future, due to the continued success of CBS News Sunday Morning, which has a distinctly different format with long form journalism reports and in-depth interview segments.
In 2007, CBS sought to change the 3rd place position of The Early Show in September 2007 by hiring Shelly Ross, former executive producer of GMA from 1999–2004. Significant changes were made to the program as Ross asserted her influence. For instance, the network no longer allows the frequent local station breaks that were previously allowed during the former broadcast as of January 7, 2008. CBS reportedly views the removal of those breaks as vital to creating a national profile for the program.
However, some CBS affiliates continue to air the full program on another co-owned sister station and continue to air their local morning news; WWL-TV in New Orleans has never aired the Early Show or any of its previous versions, broadcasting all local newscasts instead, currently from 5am-9am. The Early Show now airs in New Orleans on MyNetworkTV sister station WUPL. Cincinnati's WKRC-TV airs the full show on the CBS station with an hour of all-local news on the co-owned CW channel. Salt Lake City's KUTV (which was formerly owned by the network until 2007) continues to preempt the program's first hour despite the network's insistence.
Industry insiders considered Shelley Ross' influence to be a serious threat and bring the profile of the show up to make the program a true competitor to NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. After six months, Ross was fired from the position, after frequent feuds with staff, particularly Smith and Chen, who reportedly informed management that either Ross would have to go or they would.
Roughly three weeks after re-launching in 2008 under new hyper-competitive EP Shelley Ross, CBS’s last place The Early Show is touting some improved numbers over last year. According to today’s press release, for the week of Jan. 21, The Early Show has posted a 30 percent increase in adults 25-54 versus the same week last year. Also up in the same stretch: households (by 4 percent), total viewers (by 9 percent), and women 25-54 (by 25 percent)
In 2008, TV season, The Early Show is showing ratings strength with double-digit increases compared with a year earlier. Today has averaged 6 million viewers (up 6%) and a 2.2 in adults 25-54 (flat). ABC's Good Morning America has averaged 4.9 million (up 1%) and a 1.7 in adults aged 25–54 (flat). Early Show has averaged 3.5 million (up 20%) and a 1.3 in adults 25-54 (up 30%).
For the fourth quarter of 2008 (9/22/08-12/28/08), The Early Show (2.92 million viewers) posted its best delivery among total viewers in three years (since 2.93m in 2005) and cut the gap with GMA by 578,000 viewers. The CBS broadcast is also in its closest competitive position to both GMA and Today in a decade in total viewers and the key news demographic of adults aged 25–54.
Total Viewers '08 Total Viewers '07 Change
Year-to-year, CBS' The Early Show cut the Total Viewer gap by 190,000 between 2nd place Good Morning America.
On WBNS-TV 10 in Columbus, the first half-hour of The Early Show managed to surpass NBC's Today in ratings. All three broadcasts increased viewership from the prior week.
Even as Smith, Chen and Rodriguez grow more comfortable after CBS's failed experiment with a four-anchor team, their program remains far behind its rivals. After the May sweeps, The Early Show boasted of a 5 percent increase in viewers, while Today dipped 3 percent and Good Morning America by 4 percent.
For the new Early Show team's first week, ABC's "Good Morning America" improved its advantage over the last-place “Early Show” by 13 percent in total viewers. From the week of January 17, 2011, the show lost more ratings with Good Morning America had more than 2 million advantage over the show. Today Show now almost 3 million viewers ahead of the Early Show or doubled its viewership.
Ratings for the team of Chris Wragge, Erica Hill, Marysol Castro and Jeff Glor have continuously went down while Today Show and Good Morning America continues its winning streak with both morning shows closing the gap with each other.
The show is losing its ratings now, and flopping so bad with poor ratings attracting only 2.3 million viewers
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