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Good Morning America TV Show

November 16, 2011 by · Comments Off on Good Morning America TV Show 

Good Morning America TV Show, CBS has ranked No. 1 in prime time for most of the past 10 years, but its morning news broadcast has been dead last for countless more.
In the latest attempt to change that calculus, PBS talk-show host Charlie Rose and Oprah Winfrey gal pal Gayle King will lead yet another refashioned show, still untitled, that’s due Jan. 9. Rose and Erica Hill, a holdover from the current Early Show, will lead the 7 a.m. ET/PT hour, with a tighter focus on hard news, while King will anchor the 8 a.m. hour, aimed more squarely at women.

“What you’re going to see is a show that’s very different, that doesn’t try to copy what’s already out there,” says CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, referring to its far more successful counterparts, NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America. Translation: no Halloween costumes, no cooking segments and no weatherman, though the show will continue to provide cutaways to local stations for headlines, weather and traffic.

“It will be hard news, it will be real news, but it’s not going to be all serious,” Fager says, instead toggling from “war zones to (financial) markets to pop culture.” Its debut coincides with the earlier Republican presidential primary season.

Rose and King aren’t new to CBS. Rose anchored the overnight Nightwatch newscast in the 1980s and has contributed to 60 Minutes, and the company distributed King’s former daytime talk show, which lasted one season. “CBS has a new spirit, and a lot builds on a tradition I’ve known for a long time,” says Rose, who will continue to do his nightly PBS show.

King, a self-described “TV news junkie,” will give up her satellite radio show, which also aired on Winfrey’s OWN network, as of Thursday, though she’ll continue to help edit O magazine. “I really loved radio, but right now I am only going to concentrate on this,” she says.

Chris Licht, former producer of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, joined CBS News as VP of programming in June and will become executive producer of the revamped show. He promises to make it “competitive and relevant,” a task he describes as “a huge opportunity but also a huge challenge.” Aside from adopting a new name, the show will move from its current street-level, windowed Midtown studio to a brick-walled, windowless home being built in a former newsroom at CBS’ Broadcast Center.

Chris Wragge, who co-anchors the Early Show with Hill, will return full time to his role at CBS’ New York station, while news reader Jeff Glor will become a special correspondent.

Fager says a more competitive morning show has been “a long time coming,” and he’s tired of hearing the network referred to as “a distant third” in the ratings, as it is for its evening newscast, now led by Scott Pelley.

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