Not Sure CBS -- Or Anyone Else -- Done With Morning Moves
Tuesday’s formal announcement that Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill will front the new CBS morning program beginning in January means their lineup is seemingly set. Well, for 2012 anyway. It would not surprise me at all to see Joe Scarborough — and perhaps Mika Brzezinski — joining that lineup in early 2013.
The MSNBC duo — which CBS has already made a run at previously — become free agents at the end of next year, and I’d expect CBS to take another shot when contractual obligations provide one less obstacle to signing Joe, and possibly Mika, to rejoin their old producer Chris Licht.
That is not to say this new CBS crew is just a placeholder, in fact adding Joe and perhaps his current partner could round out what would be a pretty solid and diverse in many ways group of talent for what the network says it wants to do in the mornings. Adding Charlie Rose to the already impressive CBS News stable of venerable talent is hardly a bad thing, no matter how long he ends up spending on the yet-to-be-named morning program.
Clearly the mornings are becoming the new late night in terms of everyone watching what’s going to happen in the next year as changes could take place at all three shows with Matt Lauer’s deal coming up (how about Bob Costas as a replacement if need be after his fantastic Jerry Sandusky interview) and the always-swirling fantasy football rumors about changes at the strong Good Morning America franchise.
Should be a fun year to watch it all unfold. Unless you like Halloween costumes and national weather forecasts on CBS.
Irma commented:
Morning Joe is trying to sseablith himself as the conservative with creds. Myra plays the Alan Colmes foil to Joe's Hannity . On Friday, he attacked Glenn Beck, saying, I've been telling conservatives for about two years, this guy is bad for the movement. This guy is losing it before our eyes. He's bad for the conservative movement. He's bad for the Republican Party. He's bad for Fox News even guys over at Fox News have to start thinking, this can't last. He's out of control. I do think Scarborough would get back into politics IF it paid more money. He turned down running for U.S. Senate from Florida last year. But like Palin, he's learned there is more to be made being a celebrity. I quit watching him several months ago and feel with the new right-wing owners of MSNBC ComCast (as if GE wasn't corporate enough), he is leaving his shtick as Moderate Joe thinking controversy is good for ratings.
Joseph commented:
The major competition for the network morning shows in most markets is not the other network morning shows, but local morning shows (usually, but not always) on Fox stations.
In several markets, the top-rated TV program between 7 and 9 A.M. is a local morning news show, often on a Fox owned or affiliated station.
These shows have managed to beat the networks for one reason: They're local. They can present more local weather and traffic reports than stations carrying morning shows can.