“Charles Kuralt, who died in 1997, was the inaugural anchor of Sunday Morning”, which launched in 1979.
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Osgood has been anchor of “Sunday Morning” since 1994, and has been with CBS News since 1971. And Pauley, 65, is well known to “CBS Sunday Morning” viewers.
Leisurely-paced and laden with features, “Sunday Morning” draws almost six million viewers a week. Osgood leaves on a high note; ratings have increased for four straight years and this past season was his most-watched ever as host.
Pauley, 65, will become only the third host in the show’s history, following Osgood, 83, who’s retiring after 22 years on the show (and 45 at CBS News) and will take over on October 9.
“It’s a great honor to be given the chance to further our show’s legacy on excellence”, Pauley said. She anchored Dateline from 1992 to 2003, and hosted Time and Again, a retrospective news series built from the NBC archives, which aired on MSNBC.
“A worthy successor and a ideal fit”, Morrison said. Martha Teichner will look at Osgood’s love of poetry; Anthony Mason will report on Osgood’s career in music; Tracy Smith looks back at his childhood; Mo Rocca gets the story behind his bow-tie collection; Serena Altschul recalls some of Osgood’s favorite TV reports; Lee Cowan travels to France to visit with the Osgood family at their seaside retreat; and Rita Braver dives into his news and radio career. She becomes only the third host in “Sunday Morning” history, also the first woman and the first anchor to have not spent the entirety of her career at CBS News. He sat at the piano to sing a song of farewell.
Osgood will continue to host his daily radio segment The Osgood File on the CBS Radio Network, as well as make occasional appearances on Sunday Morning.
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It featured cameos from Tom Brokaw, who tried futilely to tie his own bow tie; Ted Koppel, who noted that Osgood’s real last name, Wood, was abandoned professionally because ABC had another newscaster named Charles Wood; and David Letterman, whose beard is approaching Santa Claus lengths. She also hosted a syndicated daytime show in 2004-2005.
