| CBS Saturday Morning | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Also known as |
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| Genre | News program |
| Directed by | Kelly Casse |
| Presented by |
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| Theme music composer | Gottfried Reiche &Antfood |
| Opening theme | "Abblasen" with CBS' five note jingle by Antfood |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Brian Applegate |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 84 minutes |
| Production company | CBS News |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | September 13, 1997 (1997-09-13) – present |
CBS Saturday Morning is a Saturdaymorning television program that broadcasts on the American television network,CBS. It is the Saturday counterpart to the network's weekday morning program,CBS Mornings.
Although the program's name has changed several times throughout its existence to align with changes to its weekday counterpart, its format has evolved separately from, and more gradually compared to CBS' weekday morning programs.
The program airs live from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time, although local air times for the Saturday broadcast vary significantly from station to station, even within the same time zone. In some markets, the local CBS affiliate may opt to pre-empt the Saturday program either partially or outright – usually to carry extended weekend morning local newscasts – and may instead air it on adigital subchannel or asister station, or refuse to carry it at all.
Most CBS affiliates in the Central Time Zone carry the Saturday edition live from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Central Time, unlike its morning counterparts, which air their Saturday editions on atape delay; it is the only morning program that airs live in both the Eastern and Central time zones, whereas the Saturday edition is aired on tape delay in the remaining time zones.
CBS debuted its first Saturday morning newscast on September 13, 1997, alongside the relaunch of itsSaturday morning children's programming lineup asThink CBS Kids. TitledCBS News Saturday Morning, the program was originally anchored byRuss Mitchell and former New York congresswomanSusan Molinari, who left in 1998, followed byDawn Stensland-Mendte in 1998–1999.
For its first year, the program was broadcast live one hour later than the Monday through Friday version of the originalCBS This Morning, starting at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time; however, it was based out of the same studio at theCBS Broadcast Center that was home to the weekday broadcast. The program moved to the 7:00 a.m. Eastern time slot (uniform with the weekday broadcast) in September 1998. Many CBS stations airedCBS News Saturday Morning/The Saturday Early Show in varying time slots; however, some affiliates (such asKENS inSan Antonio, Texas, andWREG-TV inMemphis, Tennessee) opted to pre-empt the Saturday edition in favor of airing local morning newscasts, while some chose to carry the network's Saturday morning children's program block afterward if their newscast ended before 9:00 a.m. in order to make up for the pre-emption of the national program, something that remains the case with the current iteration of the program.
By 1999, the program had launched a series of musical performances under the "Second Cup Café" banner (no relationship to the Canada-basedSecond Cup café chain, which has had some American franchises from time to time), which continued through subsequent versions of the program.[1][2]
Production of the Saturday edition moved to theGeneral Motors Building in late 1999, when the weekday and Saturday programs were relaunched underThe Early Show brand. Russ Mitchell continued as co-host alongsideThalia Assuras (1999–2002),Gretchen Carlson (2002–2005), andTracy Smith (2005–2007).Jeff Glor andChris Wragge rotated as co-hosts alongsideMaggie Rodriguez in 2007. In 2008, when Rodriguez moved to weekdays, correspondentsBetty Nguyen, Kelly Cobiella and Kelly Wallace rotated as co-hosts.
The format allowed for news and weather cut-ins, however not every affiliate provided local updates, usually due to a lack of a staff normally assigned for a weekend (or at least, a Saturday) morning newscast on stations that did not offer local updates. Alternately, an informal conversation segment among the anchors appeared during the time allocated to the cut-ins, and graphical weather information for various U.S. cities during the weather cut-ins on stations that did not provide local updates. Weather anchorsIra Joe Fisher and, initially,Lonnie Quinn, provided voiceovers for some of the forecasts, while chatting with people in the audience outside the studio's building; afterward, the graphics ran only set to music.
In 2008,The Saturday Early Show began to be branded as simplyThe Early Show, in line with the weekday edition. Around that time, the program began to be anchored byWCBS-TV anchor Chris Wragge and Erica Hill, running until the weekday shake-up at the end of 2010.[3] On January 8, 2011, Russ Mitchell returned to co-anchor withRebecca Jarvis while WCBS-TV chief weathercaster Lonnie Quinn continued as weather anchor andCBS Morning News anchor Betty Nguyen served as news anchor, co-anchoring one Saturday a month.
The program relaunched asCBS This Morning Saturday on January 14, 2012, after the relaunch of the weekday program as the revivedCBS This Morning. Although Russ Mitchell left the program, being replaced by Jeff Glor alongside the continuing Rebecca Jarvis, the Saturday edition did not initially see the same format changes as the weekday program, with Betty Nguyen initially continuing as the program's news anchor, and Lonnie Quinn as weather anchor until late 2012 (and weather segments continuing with substitute hosts until March 2013). Couches were also moved temporarily onto the main set where the hosts would introduce certain segments, while the weekday program's "EyeOpener" was not introduced to the Saturday edition until June 14, 2014.
After Glor was named anchor of the Sunday edition of theCBS Evening News, the program started using various male correspondents, includingAnthony Mason,Chip Reid,Jim Axelrod,Maurice DuBois,James Brown,Byron Pitts,Ben Tracy,Charles Osgood,Lee Cowan,Major Garrett,Seth Doane,John Dickerson,John Miller andTony Dokoupil, rotating every other Saturday. Eventually Mason became the permanent Saturday anchor, initially alongside Jarvis, thenVinita Nair,Alex Wagner, and later bothMichelle Miller andDana Jacobson.
Following a divisional restructuring in May 2019 that resulted in his departure from theCBS Evening News, Glor rejoinedCBS This Morning Saturday on June 22, 2019, replacing Mason who had moved to the weekday program. At that point, CBS News executives noted that the program was referred to internally as "SATMO" (as in "Saturday Morning"), possibly a holdover from the earliest iteration of the program.[4]
Like the weekend editions of other network morning shows, the program retained a greater focus on human-interest pieces than on weekdays, though it still concentrates primarily on the news of the day during the first half-hour. It has retained some of the common features of the morning show genre which were removed from the weekday show, though some with an atypical approach, including the aforementioned "Second Cup Café" music feature (later renamed "Saturday Sessions"), which has increasingly focused onindependent artists. Cooking segments were eventually replaced by "The Dish", which features profiles of chefs and restaurateurs.[5]
An exception to the usual Saturday format occurred on February 2, 2013 (the day beforeSuper Bowl XLVII), when the weekday anchor team hosted fromNew Orleans (where the game was held at theMercedes-Benz Superdome), an edition that was branded as simplyCBS This Morning (instead ofCBS This Morning Saturday) and was formatted similarly to the weekday program, including "EyeOpener" segments at the top of both hours.
On August 31, 2021, alongside the announcement of a revamped weekday morning programCBS Mornings, CBS announced that the Saturday program would be retitledCBS Saturday Morning, effective September 18. (The September 11 edition, which followed the weekday relaunch on September 7, aired asCBS This Morning Saturday, but was partially pre-empted in most areas by9/11 memorial coverage.[6]) As with the weekday program, production was relocated to the newly-christened Studio 1515 atViacomCBS' headquarters,One Astor Plaza inTimes Square.[7] Despite the name and studio change, the program otherwise maintains the same format as it had for most of its run asCBS This Morning Saturday, and Glor, Jacobson and Miller remained hosts.[7] Both the rebrandedCBS Mornings andCBS Saturday Morning tie in more closely withCBS Sunday Morning, including use of the latter's sun logo and a version of the "Abblasen" trumpet fanfare, alongside CBS' five note mnemonic by Antfood.[7]
Jeff Glor was laid off from CBS News in September 2024, as part of larger cutbacks atParamount Global;[8] he co-anchoredCBS Saturday Morning for the final time on September 28[9] and was not replaced, leaving Jacobson and Miller as the remaining hosts.[10] As part of an expansion of weather segments on CBS News programs in early 2025,CBS Saturday Morning readded regular weather segments presented by WCBS-TV meteorologist John Elliot.[11] The program moved back to Studio 57 in the CBS Broadcast Center on Saturday, October 4, 2025, in conjunction with the weekdayCBS Mornings making the same move.[12]
In October 2025, it was reported thatSaturday Morning would be integrated with the staff of the weekdayCBS Mornings and be relaunched as part of a larger series of staff cuts byParamount Skydance, with Miller and Jacobson leaving the program;[13] their final broadcast was on November 22.[14] The program was hosted by rotating anchors includingVladimir Duthiers, Lindsey Reiser,Anthony Mason,Meg Oliver,Adriana Diaz, Kelly O'Grady, and Michael George from November 29, 2025 through January 3, 2026.[15]
On January 9, 2026,Adriana Diaz and Kelly O'Grady were announced as the new co-hosts ofSaturday Morning. The new anchor duo debuted on January 10, 2026.[16]
Various substitute news anchors were used for the Saturday editions from 2005 to 2009.
