The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

[JeeperOne]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

CBS did have some success with the hard-news format with Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis, post-Kuralt. It was a welcomed break from celebrity interviews and cooking segments.

Maybe CBS just needs to take a no nonsense hard news approach like their O&O's & affiliates do (Minus the traffic reports of course) instead of trying to compete with NBC & ABC (And FAILING MISERABLY at it in the process)

Afterall, why do they think Fox has kept its morning news show on their cable news channel instead of hawking it onto their affiliates?

Just sayin'.....

Cheers & 73 ;D

 

[Mark Giardina]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Many years ago I had suggested that CBS hire Don Imus and his crew away from MSNBC and air that program weekday mornings.
Sure some may say it's a crazy idea, however when a network is constantly coming in last place why not try something unique?

Unfortunately with Charles McCord now retired and Imus looking like a model for students studying embalming, that idea will no longer fly; so here is another suggestion.

Either have CBS affiliates run their own local programs during AM drive time, or better yet stick a camera inside a popular radio station and air their morning zoo or what ever you want to call it. This way CBS can save its resources for its evening programs and local stations get the chance to something that might interest the community they serve.

 

[Mario500]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Either have CBS affiliates run their own local programs during AM drive time, or better yet stick a camera inside a popular radio station and air their morning zoo or what ever you want to call it. This way CBS can save its resources for its evening programs and local stations get the chance to something that might interest the community they serve.

Do you mean a popular local radio station? If so, it would be a great idea for both radio stations and CBS TV affiliates, as some viewers and listeners of each program may want to hear the rest of the program on the radio on their way to their place of business. The local radio programs broadcast on television could be either news and talk programs or music programs with local news segments.

 

[Mark Giardina]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Either have CBS affiliates run their own local programs during AM drive time, or better yet stick a camera inside a popular radio station and air their morning zoo or what ever you want to call it. This way CBS can save its resources for its evening programs and local stations get the chance to something that might interest the community they serve.

Do you mean a popular local radio station? If so, it would be a great idea for both radio stations and CBS TV affiliates, as some viewers and listeners of each program may want to hear the rest of the program on the radio on their way to their place of business. The radio programs broadcast on television could be either news and talk programs or music programs with local news segments.

Yes I meant a popular local radio station.

 

[Mark Giardina]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

This would be a win-win situation for both CBS, their local TV affiliates, and local radio stations across the country.

I mean why should CBS continue to pour time, money, and resources trying to reinvent the wheel?
It is quite obvious that previous attempts to take viewers away from GMA and The Today Show have failed. So think out of the box for once.

 

[formeraa]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Back in the day, CBS even tried a weekday version of the high-brow "Sunday Morning" and failed, while working poor Charles Kuralt to death. What I would suggest is a hard newscast at 7am. Give the 8am hour back to the affiliates.

 

[landtuna]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Back in the day, CBS even tried a weekday version of the high-brow "Sunday Morning" and failed, while working poor Charles Kuralt to death.

If you haven't looked lately, "Sunday Morning" is no longer "high brow" (although it continues to be NOO YAWK-centric).

It has become just another hawking platform for someone's latest movie, book or recording.

 

[azumanga]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Back in the day, CBS even tried a weekday version of the high-brow "Sunday Morning" and failed, while working poor Charles Kuralt to death.

When "Sunday Morning" was launched in 1979, it was originally supposed to be part of a six-day-a-week morning news program, starting with "Sunday Morning" and ending with "Friday Morning", with the weekday shows preceding the Captain, as usual. But while "Sunday Morning" became a hit, the weekday editions flundered against the Today show and GMA, leading CBS to retool them, at first by calling the weekday editions simply "Morning", before reverting back to the "CBS Morning News".

 

[sandiegoinexile]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

It will be Morning Joe II. Expect roundtables/experts/correspondents and a heavy news focus in Hour One. It was announced that Gayle would "lead" Hour Two, so that hour will be an early morning version of The Talk/The View.

Admittedly, I now live in a tiny media market (sub-150), but the morning local shows (5AM-7AM) are just usually retreads of the same news reports that ran on the 11PM news the night before, with tons of weather, traffic, and giggly chit-chat ("pet of the week"). Even when I lived in PHX/SD/KC, there wasn't really all that new to report pre-7AM PT.

 

[DToTheJ]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

When "Sunday Morning" was launched in 1979, it was originally supposed to be part of a six-day-a-week morning news program, starting with "Sunday Morning" and ending with "Friday Morning", with the weekday shows preceding the Captain, as usual. But while "Sunday Morning" became a hit, the weekday editions flundered against the Today show and GMA, leading CBS to retool them, at first by calling the weekday editions simply "Morning", before reverting back to the "CBS Morning News".

Likewise, you can say that "The Late Show" is far more successful these days than "The Early Show." (Then again, NBC has "The Today Show" and "The Tonight Show" and even had a show called "Tomorrow" for awhile...)

 

[bpatrick]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

While Kuralt was as classy as ever, the people at CBS News
failed to grasp that on Monday-Friday people are rushing to get
ready for work and don't have time for the long, leisurely pieces
so characteristic of "Sunday Morning," when people have time
to kick back and take them in.

Again, I think CBS's problems go back a long way. "Today" started
in 1952, hit its stride with (yes!) the chimp J. Fred Muggs, and built
a following from there. CBS had problems from the time they first
tried to compete with "Today": "The Morning Show," which debuted
in 1954 and had as hosts Walter Cronkite, Jack Paar, Dick Van Dyke,
and Will Rogers Jr., never caught on. What did was a 45-minute show
with Jimmy Dean in 1957, which was actually beating "Today" when CBS
decided to move it to the afternoon.

CBS got out of the morning-news race (except for a 15-minute newscast
with Richard Hottelet at 8 AM in the early '60s), decided to do one at 10
AM ("Calendar" with Harry Reasoner, succeeded by the "CBS Morning News
With Mike Wallace," which moved to 7 AM in 1965). After that there was
some turnover (Wallace, Joseph Benti, John Hart) before the Hughes Rudd/
Sally Quinn fiasco in 1973.

Now fast forward to 1975. ABC decided to get in on the action, and after
the disaster of "A.M. America," the show was revamped in November as
"Good Morning America." It was about this time that ABC was beginning to
move toward number one, and for the next three years or so, every primetime
ABC show seemed to have Hartman's voiceover promoting the next morning's show.
And with more and more people leaving their sets on the ABC station at night, "GMA"
was waiting for them the next morning--especially during the Iranian hostage crisis
when ABC was literally having the last word of the day with its late-night reports
(which became "Nightline").

Bottom line: on NBC is an American institution; on ABC is a show which developed
its own following rather quickly. And news habits are hard to break; by the time
CBS scuttled the "Morning News"/"Captain Kangaroo" combo, most of the morning
audience had committed to one of the other two. And it doesn't help when CBS has
to constantly change format and personnel.

At the other end of the day, however, it looks like CBS made a good move replacing
Katie with Scott Pelley. As I understand it, Katie was supposed to bring the predominantly
female audience from the morning shows along with features and interviews--and I don't
think people want features and interviews at 6:30 PM.

I think that right now, if I ran a CBS affiliate, I'd settle for one hour of hard news, choice
of 7 or 8 AM, and follow the lead of some Fox affiliates (ours has five hours, from 5 to 10 AM)
and expand my local morning news. Heck, the bucks are out there.

 

[firepoint525]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

A lot of CBS affiliates would love to have the time back for local morning news. You might recall some few years ago CBS had a "blended" format for their morning show which allowed for mostly local content in the 7am hour. A lot of stations were very reluctant to give that up when the network reclaimed it.
The cold reality is that there is probably not enough room for three OTA network morning shows, especially with all the competition from cable. CBS should give the entire two hours back to the local stations and be done with the headache.

This is what I would like to see done. Here in Nashville, channel 5 airs local news from 4:00 until 7:00 a.m. After the networks took back that "blended" segment that you referred to, channel 5 continued their morning news during the 7:00-8:00 a.m. hour on newschannel5+, a cable channel which has since also become a subchannel. The :25 and :55 network breaks are simulcast over both channels, although with a 5-second delay on "the plus."

 

[landtuna]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Even when I lived in PHX/SD/KC, there wasn't really all that new to report pre-7AM PT.

Still isn't. The local Fox affiliate's morning show is a mix of (mostly local) news (house fires, shootings, lost hikers), traffic (SOS except for the occasional massive pile-up) and entertainment (cooking features, movie reviews, animal visits) virtually all of which have some sort of local tie-in to local businesses.

But the staff makes it fun to watch and the almost constant "technical difficulties" are, at times, hilarious.

 

[bpatrick]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

A lot of CBS affiliates would love to have the time back for local morning news. You might recall some few years ago CBS had a "blended" format for their morning show which allowed for mostly local content in the 7am hour. A lot of stations were very reluctant to give that up when the network reclaimed it.
The cold reality is that there is probably not enough room for three OTA network morning shows, especially with all the competition from cable. CBS should give the entire two hours back to the local stations and be done with the headache.

This is what I would like to see done. Here in Nashville, channel 5 airs local news from 4:00 until 7:00 a.m. After the networks took back that "blended" segment that you referred to, channel 5 continued their morning news during the 7:00-8:00 a.m. hour on newschannel5+, a cable channel which has since also become a subchannel. The :25 and :55 network breaks are simulcast over both channels, although with a 5-second delay on "the plus."

WRAL has local news from 4:30 to 7 AM, then hands off the local news to WRAZ, its sister station and Fox affiliate for Raleigh/Durham. To my knowledge, WRAZ does not pick up any network breaks from CBS.

Our other CBS affiliate, WFMY, has its "Good Morning Show" from 5 to 8 AM, then carries "The Early Show" on a one-hour delay from 8 to 10. Another hour of local news would be feasible (and bring it within striking distance of WGHP/FOX8 in terms of length, theirs going from 5 to 10). Unlike WTVF, WFMY never took advantage of the "blended" segment; it carried both hours of "The Early Show" during that time.

Another station in your neck of the woods that would probably like to get back that hour for local news is WLKY; they did do the "blended" thing from 7-8 before CBS took it away.

 

[formeraa]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Admittedly, I now live in a tiny media market (sub-150), but the morning local shows (5AM-7AM) are just usually retreads of the same news reports that ran on the 11PM news the night before, with tons of weather, traffic, and giggly chit-chat ("pet of the week"). Even when I lived in PHX/SD/KC, there wasn't really all that new to report pre-7AM PT.

Well, the larger markets add in overnight fires, late-night police chases, and late-night shootings...all VERY important news to see first thing in the morning. "Let's go live to Suzy. Well, John, there's still police tape up at the scene of the crime and several police officers are here examining the scene. According to police, one person was shot and taken to St. yyy Hospital. Their condition is not known at this hour. I'm Suzy Solis reporting live in North zzz."

 

[arnoldevns]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

CBS did have some success with the hard-news format with Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis, post-Kuralt. It was a welcomed break from celebrity interviews and cooking segments.

Maybe CBS just needs to take a no nonsense hard news approach like their O&O's & affiliates do (Minus the traffic reports of course) instead of trying to compete with NBC & ABC (And FAILING MISERABLY at it in the process)

Afterall, why do they think Fox has kept its morning news show on their cable news channel instead of hawking it onto their affiliates?

Just sayin'.....

Cheers & 73 ;D

hahahaha.. you are either being funny.. or are just terribly misinformed. Fox stations generally run local news opposite the network morning programs. In many cases, the Fox station beats both Today and GMA. Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" is tops on cable news in the morning. Fox couldn't move that to the Fox Network without seriously hurting the News Channel and probably hurting ratings for the local stations.

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

CBS did have some success with the hard-news format with Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis, post-Kuralt. It was a welcomed break from celebrity interviews and cooking segments.

Maybe CBS just needs to take a no nonsense hard news approach like their O&O's & affiliates do (Minus the traffic reports of course) instead of trying to compete with NBC & ABC (And FAILING MISERABLY at it in the process)

Afterall, why do they think Fox has kept its morning news show on their cable news channel instead of hawking it onto their affiliates?

Just sayin'.....

Cheers & 73 ;D

hahahaha.. you are either being funny.. or are just terribly misinformed. Fox stations generally run local news opposite the network morning programs. In many cases, the Fox station beats both Today and GMA. Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" is tops on cable news in the morning. Fox couldn't move that to the Fox Network without seriously hurting the News Channel and probably hurting ratings for the local stations.

go back and read it again. He was saying the reason Fox *hasn't* moved "F&F" to the affiliates is because it would likely fail. That the local shows do much better than some of the network's.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

While Kuralt was as classy as ever, the people at CBS News
failed to grasp that on Monday-Friday people are rushing to get
ready for work and don't have time for the long, leisurely pieces
so characteristic of "Sunday Morning," when people have time
to kick back and take them in.

I think that you are onto something there.

The format that seems to work best is the local news structure of "Traffic and Weather Every Ten Minutes".

Traffic and weather, a story about a shooting, a bank robbery, a tax hike.

More traffic and weather. A consumer report, human interest piece, sports

Traffic and weather, etc. Bite-sized twelve minute pieces.

Granted you can't really do traffic (and only a generic weather forecast) on a national show.

 

[bpatrick]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

But at 7 AM, if you're a network, you have to get the
headlines in as briefly as possible. One of our CBS affiliates,
WFMY, has just started "News 2.0" (a reference to the fact
that their newscast is now in HD), and on the "Good Morning
Show" there are now two minutes of news headlines and weather after
every commercial break, then the stories are reported
in more detail. While I personally think the format is cluttered, it's a
way for people to get as much (or as little) news as they want before they head
out the door. It could be a model for a network; I suspect the other Gannett
stations are doing something similar.

I believe that the last two hours of the "Today" show are far more feature-
oriented than the first two.

 

[quadraphonic]

Re: The Curse of the "Captain": CBS to Change Its Morning News Show Yet Again

Admittedly, I now live in a tiny media market (sub-150), but the morning local shows (5AM-7AM) are just usually retreads of the same news reports that ran on the 11PM news the night before, with tons of weather, traffic, and giggly chit-chat ("pet of the week"). Even when I lived in PHX/SD/KC, there wasn't really all that new to report pre-7AM PT.

Well, the larger markets add in overnight fires, late-night police chases, and late-night shootings...all VERY important news to see first thing in the morning. "Let's go live to Suzy. Well, John, there's still police tape up at the scene of the crime and several police officers are here examining the scene. According to police, one person was shot and taken to St. yyy Hospital. Their condition is not known at this hour. I'm Suzy Solis reporting live in North zzz."

Also, apparently when you get down into the #30 market area or so, like Raleigh-Durham, say, watch out: the "news" all morning has to involve some reporter/ette doing a live shot from in front of the police station, where usually someone was brought in just hours before, or will be brought in hours later. Sometimes, there can even be two reporters in front of the same building, which is at most, a couple miles from the stations...