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NEW YORK – CBS News will retire The Early Show after more than ten years as the title of its third-place weekday morning program.
The network announced Thursday that the broadcast will be re-christened CBS This Morning when news co-hosts Charlie Rose and Gayle King make their debut alongside current host Erica Hill on Jan. 9.
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The new name was actually the title of the CBS morning program from 1987 until 1999, when it was renamed The Early Show. Not only does CBS This Morning hark back to the news division’s roots, it also invokes the successful Sunday morning broadcast CBS News Sunday Morning. That storied program, inaugurated by the late Charles Kuralt, continues to top its weekend morning competition with host Charles Osgood.
Since taking over the stewardship of CBS News last February, chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes have emphasized the news division’s venerable heritage as the network or Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. They have also stressed dogged original reporting epitomized on the network’s long-running primetime newsmagazine 60 Minutes. (Fager is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes.)
CBS This Morning will follow that same script while also installing a host (Rose) known for his intellectual interviews on PBS.
There will be no weatherman or cooking segments and no couch, all requisites of morning television for decades.
“This show is going to be about who we are; original reporting and great storytelling,” explained Fager last month during a press conference announcing Rose and King as hosts.
Chris Licht, who joined CBS News last June from MSNBC, where he was the mastermind behind Morning Joe, is executive producer of CBS This Morning and was instrumental in recruiting King and Rose.
The show is also getting a new studio at the CBS broadcast center on West 57th Street in Manhattan. So there will also be no crowds queuing up to wave signs at the street-side windows.
Email: Marisa.Guthrie@thr.com
Twitter: @MarisaGuthrie
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