Maggie Rodriguez Named Co-Anchor of CBS’ Early Show

Saturday Early Show Anchor Replaces Hannah Storm

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/4/2007 2:23:00 PM

CBS named Maggie Rodriguez, an anchor of its Saturday Early Show, as co-anchor of the weekday Early Show effective Jan. 7. She joins less than one week after the network confirmed that Hannah Storm would leave her co-anchor spot on the show.

Rodriguez, who has anchored the weekend show since June, joins Harry Smith and Julie Chen as co-anchor of the morning program. She has reported for and substitute-anchored the weekday show, in addition to reporting for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and CBS News Sunday Morning and substitute-anchoring the weekend Evening News.

CBS said Nov. 28 that Storm was "in discussions" with CBS News president Sean McManus about a new role at the division. Her departure came on the heels of defections from Early Show producers.

According to sources at CBS News, at least some of those defections can be chalked up to personality clashes with new senior executive producer Shelley Ross, who was hired in September to help relaunch the third-place morning show as senior executive producer. On Jan. 7, Early Show will jettison a long-standing affiliate agreement that allows local stations to insert their own content into the first hour of the program.

Rodriguez started in journalism as a reporter at WLTV Miami in 1989. She moved on to Univision in 1991 and KABC-TV Los Angeles in 1994 as anchor of the midday news and a weekend magazine show. Before coming to CBS News, she anchored the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts at WFOR-TV, the CBS-owned station in Miami, from 2000-07.

“In the past six months, Maggie has proved to be a remarkably good fit in morning news,” McManus said in a statement. “Maggie is a terrific addition to The Early Show with so much experience in live anchoring. In the time she’s been working with our Early Show team, we’ve come to both respect her as a journalist and really enjoy her as a colleague.”