CBS News Announces New "Early Show" Team

Chris Wragge and Erica Hill Named New Co-Anchors

(l-r) Jeff Glor moves from correspondent and anchor of The “CBS Evening News” Saturday edition to news anchor on “Early”. Chris Wragge will leave his anchor job at WCBS-TV and co-anchor of “Early Show” Saturday to become co-anchor of the weekday edition. Erica Hill moves up from newsreader and weekend co-anchor to weekday co-anchor and Marysol Castro, late of ABC’s “Good Morning America” weekend joins as weather anchor.

Big changes are coming to CBS-TV's "The Early Show" next year.   Starting Jan. 3, Erica Hill and Chris Wragge will be the new co-anchors of CBS News' morning program. Jeff Glor will serve as the broadcast’s news anchor.  Marysol Castro, formerly of ABC's "Good Morning America" weekend edition, will join the team as the weather anchor.

The appointments were announced Tuesday by Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, and David Friedman, "Early Show" executive producer.

Last December, David Friedman was hired away from NBC, where he spent six years at the “Today” show, to be the executive producer of CBS’s “The Early Show.” Eleven months later, he has put his mark on the show in a big way, replacing co-anchors  Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez and its weatherman, Dave Price, with a team of Erica Hill and Chris Wragge, with Jeff Glor as news anchor and Marysol Castro as weather anchor. Smith, who joined CBS in 1987, will be the primary guest anchor for “Evening News,” “Face the Nation” and “Sunday Morning.” The morning show has stubbornly remained in third place since its launch in 1999.

Keach Hagey at politico.com spoke with Friedman Tuesday afternoon about the shakeup, the demographics of morning show audiences and what he thought of "Morning Glory."

Q:  Why the change?

A:  I got here a year ago. When I got here, I came for a very specific reason. I came here, No.1, out of my love of morning TV. But No. 2 was to make the show better. Yes, some of that has to do with ratings, but it’s really about the quality of the broadcast. In the last 11 months, that I’ve been there, I’ve looked at the show with an eye toward how do I improve it. And the talent was one of the many aspects of the show that we looked at. We thought long and hard, and looked at different options, and came up with a team that I feel strongly would be the team of the future. That’s the change, and we took our time to do it.

Read more here.

Also read here:

Behind CBS' Morning Show Shakeup (Howard Kurtz, The Daily Beast)



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