CBS’ ‘Morning’ Survives First Tough Year

It’s official today: “CBS This Morning,” the latest in a long line of CBS efforts to compete at dawn with NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” has lasted a year.

Co-anchors Harry Smith and Kathleen Sullivan are still there. So are weatherman/music reporter Mark McEwen, medical correspondent Dr. Bob Arnot, and executive producer David Corvo.

No one has quit, been fired, or written a nasty insider’s book about the program. There are no rumors that the program will be taken off the air.

All this is remarkable because, like most previous CBS offerings at reveille, “CBS This Morning” is a distant third in the ratings.

“I really think it’s the best of the three morning shows. . . . I think they’re on the right track,” says Paul Raymon, general manager of CBS affiliate WAGA-TV in Atlanta.

For him to say that is something. He was so displeased with the program’s low-rated predecessor last year that he dumped it and substituted his own home-grown morning show, a blend of local and syndicated fare.

The object of his ire: The short-lived, 90-minute “The Morning Show,” which, with actress Mariettte Hartley and Rolland Smith co-hosting, set out to find a new audience, one more attuned to entertainment than news. Unlike previous CBS morning shows, it was produced outside the news division.

Born in January, 1987, replacing the last of the various incarnations of the “CBS Morning News,” the lighthearted “The Morning Show” averaged a 2.7 rating for its first three months. Then a slide set in.

It was down to a 2.1 when it was banished in November last year.

Enter “CBS This Morning,” with Sullivan lured from morning-anchoring duties at ABC News, and Smith, a then relatively unknown CBS correspondent, summoned from Dallas.

The decision to give the 7-9 a.m. weekday slot back to CBS News caused much rejoicing there, particularly for the staff of 125 now employed on the program.

But no Nielsen miracle has occurred, although the network has said that none was expected. Progress, such as it is, is measured in tenths of a ratings point.

Last December, “CBS This Morning,” with its basic emphasis on news and newsmakers, had risen in the Nielsens to a 2.2 rating. Then it rose to a heady 2.4 for the first three months of this year, only to fall during the next two quarters to a 2.1.

According to Nielsen estimates so far this season, in which a ratings point represents 904,000 homes, CBS’ program has edged up to a 2.3 rating average--still well behind the 4.1 average of the front-running “Today” show and the 3.9 of “Good Morning America.”

In the opinion of the easy-going Smith, it’s going to take a while to lure back the audience driven away by the network’s many morning-show overhauls of the past few years.

“I think people who had natural CBS News loyalties would have come to us,” he says. “I think they just got fed up and said, ‘ Adios .’ And now, it’s chip-away time. You’ve got to re-convert ‘em again.”

In Atlanta, the local ratings for the Sullivan-Smith program have “not dramatically” increased since WAGA began airing it, Raymon says.

“But you know, it takes a long time for that to happen,” adds the executive, whose station is in the nation’s 12th-largest viewing market. “I think they are somewhat improved . . . but that kind of early-morning (viewing) habit is possibly the toughest of all to break.”

Producer Corvo professes not to think of ratings when planning things: “I almost feel as if we have blinders on.”

It helps that the program has the solid support of CBS News President David Burke. He showed up on the set Monday to help celebrate the program’s birthday early, because he was leaving for Las Vegas and the annual convention of the Radio and Television News Directors Assn. this week.

The rarely interviewed Burke told TV writers last October that his commitment to “CBS This Morning” is “extraordinarily strong” and that “I’m going to do anything I can” to help it grow.

“I think the big thing now is promotion,” WAGA’s Raymon said by phone Tuesday from Atlanta.

“I think if they (CBS) promoted it, gave it top priority,” he said, that would “get people to sample it. And once they do, the audience will grow.”