CBS News Sunday Morning

Each edition follows a story totem pole in the center of the CBS soundstage, with previews of featured stories set to air during the broadcast (the first four of which feature clips from the story packages with preview narration by the respective correspondent) during the introduction. Each story covered in a given episode has a glass plate with its headline on this pole (digitally inserted on the pole as a prepared graphic since the late 2000s), which the camera follows after the host's introductions. Music in the show is usually limited to the opening and closing title theme. The host introduces each story with a short monologue, then sends the show out to the taped segment. The show usually ends with a preview of next week's Sunday Morning broadcast. After the commercial break, there is a thirty-second tranquil nature scene.

For most of its history, the program was typically presented live, with a short summary of national and international news headlines, sports, and a national weather forecast right after the featured story teasers, and a preview of the guests and topics to air on that week's Face the Nation (which follows the program on most CBS stations) near the end of the program. During the occasional weeks that Sunday Morning aired a pre-taped theme broadcast, the headlines segment would instead be presented live by another anchor. By early 2022, observers noted that Sunday Morning had quietly shifted to a pre-taped format; in the event of a major weekend news story, it may be presented with a generic on-set introduction combined with an off-set voiceover by the host.[5]

Notably, Sunday Morning includes significant coverage of the fine and performing arts, including coverage of topics usually not covered in network news, such as architecture, painting, ballet, opera and classical music, though increasingly more popular forms of music have been included as well. The program's correspondents tend to ask nontraditional questions of guests (for instance, actor Brad Pitt was asked about his love of architecture, and Grant Hill about his painting collection). Television essays similar to the kinds delivered on PBS also appear, and the program generally has a stable of equally positive and negative news stories to fill up the program when there is no breaking news of note. Story lengths are longer (lasting up to twelve minutes at a time) and the pace of the program is considerably quieter and more relaxed than CBS Mornings and CBS Saturday Morning, even after those programs began sharing some of Sunday Morning's branding elements.

Commentators Ben Stein and Nancy Giles appear in recurring segments to deliver opinion commentaries, and correspondent Bill Geist also contributes human interest stories.[6][7] The program ends with a nature scene, not given a formal title for most of the program's history, but since entitled "Moment of Nature" as it is now a sponsored element.

Despite the stereotype of the program appealing primarily to senior citizens,[8] Sunday Morning has actually placed first in its time slot in the key demographic of adults 25–54, beating all of the political discussion-driven Sunday morning talk shows.[9][10]

On one occasion, in April 1986, the entire program served as a showcase for classical music when a live broadcast of Vladimir Horowitz's historic Moscow piano recital was aired. For that presentation only, the program departed from its usual newsmagazine format and devoted the entire ninety minutes to a complete presentation of the recital. Because the recital was given at 4:00 p.m. Moscow time, CBS was able to broadcast it at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The presentation was such a critical and popular success that it was repeated two months later and was subsequently released on VHS and DVD.

The program is marked by its distinctive Sun of May-style logo, which is prominent in the program's title sequence. In addition, in between some segments, images of the sun in various forms also appear. The show's theme is the trumpet fanfare "Abblasen", attributed to Gottfried Reiche. A recording of the piece on a baroque trumpet by Don Smithers was used as the show's theme for many years until producers decided to replace the vinyl recording with a digital of a piccolo trumpet by Doc Severinsen; the current version is played by Wynton Marsalis.[11]

Sunday Morning and CBS' other morning news programs, under varying names and formats, have remained fully separate productions, though with occasional cross-promotion and some sharing of correspondents. On August 31, 2021, the network announced that its weekday morning show would be relaunched for the latest time as CBS Mornings and its Saturday counterpart as CBS Saturday Morning. Under this latest reformatting, both programs have taken on some branding elements of Sunday Morning like its logo and "Abblasen" fanfare, although with a more contemporary feel and aspects of CBS's new corporate branding.[12] Its second hour also features a larger focus on long-form stories not unlike Sunday Morning.[13][14]

On May 21, 2023, Sunday Morning received an updated logo and graphics package to align itself with the CBS corporate branding, while preserving the program's existing look and feel in a refreshed form rather than using the versions used by CBS Mornings.[15]

Neurologist Steven Novella and paranormal investigator Joe Nickell wrote in separate Skeptical Inquirer articles about Erin Moriarty's lack of skepticism and "complete journalistic fail" over a March 2018 segment in which she showed clips of spoon-bender Uri Geller from the 1980s performing "'psychic parlor tricks'" but instead of explaining to her audience that Geller had been debunked many times, with no mention of the work of James Randi. Novella stated of Moriarty "is (most likely) just an old-school journalist who thinks of paranormal pieces as 'fluff' pieces that don't require journalistic rigor."[17] In another segment Moriarty interviewed psychic Angela Dellafiora Ford, who claims that she "psychically tracked down fugitive drug smuggler Charlie Jordan in 1989." Nickell writes that Moriarty "simply takes Ford at her word" and "gushes" over her. Nickell states that Ford's claims are an example of "retrofitting" and incorrect.[18]

Center for Inquiry (CFI) editor Kendrick Frazier wrote of his disappointment that CBS would air a pro-paranormal segment with Geller and a psychic detective. They also classified parapsychologist Dean Radin as a scientist, which he is not. In a tweet the next day in response to criticism, Moriarty wrote, "We reported on government experiments with the paranormal – supported by declassified Govt documents. We gave time to both those involved and scientists." Frazier responded, "Just because some part of the government initiated a bizarre little research program at some point in the past, that is not itself a validation of the claims it was studying." Further research by CFI timed the segment and "found it more than 97 percent pro-paranormal and only 3 percent skeptical".[19] In a press release, CFI called the Sunday Morning segment a "regrettable lapse ... in the ... usually objective and reliable coverage." and called on the program to "take steps to correct the record" and to "provide a more truthful and scientifically rigorous view of this topic."[20]

Kimberly Dozier and the crew of CBS Sunday Morning "The Way Home" at the 67th Annual Peabody Awards

The program won its first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Morning Program in 2013, beating out Today and Good Morning America in the category. It also won a Peabody Award in 2007 for the feature segment "The Way Home."[21]

The program's special food-themed edition on November 24, 2013, earned Sunday Morning one of its highest ratings since February 4, 1996, watched by over 6.25 million total viewers.[22]

This was surpassed by the January 18, 2015, broadcast, which had a total viewership of 6.79 million viewers, the second largest audience the program earned since January 23, 1994.[23]

March 1, 2015: 6.63 million viewers (sixth-largest audience since the 1987 advent of people meters).[24]

March 22, 2020: 6.82 million viewers (largest audience since 1994).[25]

• Official website
• CBS News Sunday Morning at IMDb