CBS News Sunday Morning

Did You Know?

• The program won its first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Morning Program in 2013, beating Today and Good Morning America.
• It won a Peabody Award in 2007 for the feature segment "The Way Home."

History

CBS launched Sunday Morning on January 28, 1979, with Charles Kuralt as host. The network had introduced a six-day-a-week morning show format on January 22, 1979, with weekday broadcasts branded as Monday Morning through Friday Morning, produced on the same set but emphasizing hard news rather than feature stories. Sunday Morning took over a 90-minute slot previously occupied by Lamp Unto My Feet, Look Up and Live, and Camera Three. The weekday version, originally anchored by Bob Schieffer, eventually had Kuralt as host and briefly included Diane Sawyer as co-host; its 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. air time limited its competitiveness against Today and Good Morning America.

In 1981 it expanded to 90 minutes and was renamed Morning; in 1982 it became a two-hour program called the CBS Morning News, with Bill Kurtis replacing Kuralt. Kuralt continued hosting Sunday Morning until April 3, 1994, when he retired after fifteen years and was succeeded by Charles Osgood. In April 1986, the program aired a special two-hour episode focused on Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz, featuring a feature story and a live 90-minute telecast of his performance from the Bolshoi Theatre, with limited commercial interruption sponsored by AT&T.

Format

Each edition opens with a story totem pole in the center of the CBS soundstage, displaying previews of featured stories; the first four include clips with narration by the correspondent. Each story has a glass plate with its headline on the pole, which has been digitally inserted as a prepared graphic since the late 2000s. Music is generally limited to the opening and closing title theme. The host introduces each story with a short monologue before the taped segment, and the show usually ends with a preview of the next week's broadcast.

After the commercial break, a 30-second tranquil nature scene airs. For most of its history, the program was presented live, with a summary of national and international news headlines, sports, and a national weather forecast after the story teasers, and a preview of Face the Nation near the end. During pre-taped theme broadcasts, the headlines segment was presented live by another anchor. By early 2022, the program had quietly shifted to a pre-taped format; in the event of a major weekend news story, it may be presented with a generic on-set introduction and off-set voiceover by the host.

The program includes significant coverage of fine and performing arts, such as architecture, painting, ballet, opera, and classical music, with increasing inclusion of popular music.

Production

The show's signature is a Sun of May-style logo featured in its opening credits, with additional sun imagery appearing between segments. Its theme music is the trumpet fanfare "Abblasen," credited to Gottfried Reiche. For years, the theme was a baroque trumpet recording by Don Smithers, later swapped for a digital piccolo trumpet version by Doc Severinsen; the current rendition is performed by Wynton Marsalis. Sunday Morning operates independently from CBS's other morning news programs, though they occasionally share correspondents and cross-promote.

On August 31, 2021, CBS relaunched its weekday and Saturday morning shows as CBS Mornings and CBS Saturday Morning, incorporating some Sunday Morning elements like the logo and "Abblasen" fanfare, but with a modernized feel. On May 21, 2023, Sunday Morning itself got an updated logo and refreshed graphics to better match other CBS News programs, while keeping most of its established look and atmosphere.

Controversy

Neurologist Steven Novella and paranormal investigator Joe Nickell wrote in separate Skeptical Inquirer articles about a March 2018 segment in which correspondent Erin Moriarty showed clips of spoon-bender Uri Geller from the 1980s performing "psychic parlor tricks" without explaining that Geller had been debunked many times, and with no mention of the work of James Randi. Novella described Moriarty as likely an old-school journalist who treats paranormal pieces as "fluff" not requiring journalistic rigor.

In another segment, Moriarty interviewed psychic Angela Dellafiora Ford, who claimed she "psychically tracked down fugitive drug smuggler Charlie Jordan in 1989"; Nickell wrote that Moriarty simply takes Ford at her word and "gushes" over her, calling Ford's claims an example of "retrofitting" and incorrect. Center for Inquiry editor Kendrick Frazier expressed disappointment that CBS would air a pro-paranormal segment with Geller and a psychic detective, and noted that parapsychologist Dean Radin was classified as a scientist, which he is not.

CFI timed the segment and found it more than 97% pro-paranormal and only three percent skeptical, calling it a "regrettable lapse" in the program's usually objective coverage.