Charles Kuralt era (1979–1994) On January 28, 1979, CBS launched
Sunday Morning with
Charles Kuralt as host. It was originally conceived to be a broadcast version of a
Sunday newspaper magazine supplement, most typified by
The New York Times Magazine. When the network introduced its new six-day-a-week morning show format on January 22, 1979, CBS News' weekday morning broadcasts were similarly branded as
Monday Morning through Friday Morning respectively, and were produced on the same set. However, these broadcasts emphasized
hard news as opposed to
Sunday Mornings focus on
feature stories.
CBS News Sunday Morning was the first weekend morning network news program on American television; at the time of its debut, the major broadcast networks usually aired
public affairs, religious and children's programs on Sunday mornings (many of which were preempted by their affiliates for local and syndicated programming). The newsmagazine took over the 90-minute slot previously occupied by three long-running series: religious programs
Lamp Unto My Feet and
Look Up and Live, and arts
anthology series Camera Three. Originally anchored by Bob Schieffer, Kuralt eventually took over the daily role, and was for a short time joined by
Diane Sawyer as co-host. However, the weekday program's then-limited 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.
EST air time (the long-running series
Captain Kangaroo was entrenched in the 8:00 a.m. hour) hampered its ability to compete with
Today on NBC and
Good Morning America on
ABC, though it expanded to ninety minutes (from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. EST) in 1981 and was renamed simply
Morning. In 1982, the weekday version was extended to two hours (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.) and reverted to its previous title as the
CBS Morning News, adopting a different set and distinct graphics in the process; by March, Kuralt had been replaced by
Bill Kurtis. Meanwhile, Kuralt continued hosting
Sunday Morning until April 3, 1994, when he retired after fifteen years and was succeeded by
Charles Osgood. Although the attempt to apply the same format to weekday broadcasts proved unsuccessful, the Sunday broadcast survived and retains its original format, including elements of its original graphic and set design. Long after the daily editions ended,
Sunday Mornings opening sequence continued to display all seven days of the week until the early 2000s.
Charles Osgood era (1994–2016) Osgood's first broadcast as host was on April 10, 1994. Ultimately, his tenure of twenty-two years as host exceeded Kuralt's fifteen. Osgood's final broadcast as host was on September 25, 2016. Among Osgood's personal trademarks were his
bow-tie, his weekly signoff ("Until then, I'll see you on the radio") and his propensity for delivering his commentaries in whimsical verse. For example, when the
United States Census Bureau invented a designation for cohabitant(s) as "Person(s) of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters", or "
POSSLQ", Osgood turned it into a pronounceable three-syllable word and composed a prospective love poem that included these lines, which he later used as the title of one of his books: :"There's nothing that I wouldn't do :If you would be my POSSLQ." On January 25, 2004,
Sunday Morning celebrated its 25th anniversary with clips and highlights from the show's first quarter-century on the air. On February 1, 2009, the program celebrated its 30th anniversary, and segments examined how the world had changed in the three decades its debut, the history of Sundays in the U.S. andas a tie-in to the show's logothe physics of the sun. An artist was commissioned to create new sun logos for the program, which debuted on that edition and were used in future broadcasts. On May 17, 2009,
Sunday Morning began broadcasting in
high-definition. In 2014, rebroadcasts of the program began airing on sister cable network
Smithsonian Channel (owned by CBS's parent company
ViacomCBS) but has since been pulled from that channel's programming.
Jane Pauley era (2016–present) In 2014,
Jane Pauley, a former co-host of
NBC's
Today, appeared as an interview subject on
Sunday Morning; positive audience response to this segment led to Pauley being hired as a contributor to the show later that year. Pauley was elevated to the role of the program's host in 2016, succeeding Osgood, once again making her the anchor of a regular morning news program for the first time in over twenty-five years and becoming her first job as the host of any television program since 2005; she continues in this role as of 2026. Pauley began her role as host on October 9, 2016, nearly forty years to the day since her debut on
Today. ==Format==