CBS Overnight News

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CBS Overnight News
Also known as
  • CBS News Nightwatch (1982–1992)
  • Up to the Minute (1992–2015)
GenreOvernight news program
Directed byChris Easley
Presented byJericka Duncan (Monday)
Norah O'Donnell (Tuesday–Friday)
(for past anchors, see section)
Theme music composerScore Productions (1982–2006)
James Horner (2006–2011)
James Trivers, Elizabeth Myers
& Alan James Pasqua (2011–2016; 2022–present)
Joel Beckerman (2016–2022)
Antfood (2022–present)
Opening theme"CBS Evening News Theme" by Antfood
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons23
Production
Executive producerKevin Rochford
ProducersJeff Christman (broadcast producer)
Jenn Eaker (associate producer)
Joseph Gelosi (broadcast producer)
Nic Kasanzew (coordinating producer)
Erika Wortham (associate producer)
Production locationsNew York City (1982–1984; 1992–2019 Weekday Edition, 2019–present Monday Edition)
Washington, D.C. (1984–1992 Weekday Editon, 2019–present Tuesday–Friday Edition)
EditorsNorman Gittleson (news)
Charlie Langton (sports)
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time60 minutes
(aired in tape-delayed loop)
Production companyCBS News
Original release
NetworkCBS
ReleaseOctober 3, 1982 (1982-10-03) –
present
Related
CBS Evening News
CBS Morning News
CBS Mornings

CBS Overnight News is an American overnight news program broadcast by CBS. Airing during the early morning hours each Monday through Friday, the program consists primarily of segments repurposed from other CBS News programming, particularly the CBS Evening News.

CBS has carried an overnight news block since 1982; it was known as CBS News Nightwatch until 1992 and then Up to the Minute until September 18, 2015.

Overview[edit]

CBS Overnight News broadcasts beginning at 2:00 a.m. ET and is transmitted in a continuous one-hour broadcast delay loop until 8:00 a.m. ET when the CBS Morning News – the network's early-morning news program – begins in certain areas of the Pacific Time Zone. (Most CBS stations air the CBS Morning News at 4:00 a.m. local time or earlier, depending on the start time of the station's local breakfast television). Most of the network's stations do not air the program's entire broadcast loop and preempt portions of it in order to air local programming (usually infomercials or syndicated) – joining the program in progress anywhere from five minutes to as much as 1½ hours after the start of the program – with affiliates looping the show until the CBS Morning News begins. Some stations and affiliates, including CBS Television Stations, carry a rebroadcast of the CBS Evening News in the first half-hour they air or leading into their morning newscasts (except Sunday into Monday morning, when-with the exception of KCNC-Face the Nation is substituted). This scheduling began during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, due to the CBS Broadcast Center's circumstances at the time where all personnel was working remotely and the building was dark for deep disinfection, requiring the Morning News to go on a hiatus which continued on into the summer.

Its main competitor is ABC's World News Now, which follows a more irreverent format than the more straightforward news style of CBS (NBC has not aired a late-night newscast since the cancellation of NBC Nightside in 1998, and locally scheduled syndicated programming or NBC News Now's Top Story with Tom Llamas leads into Early Today).

History[edit]

Former "Up to the Minute" title card.

The program's history traces back to the launch of the network's first overnight news program, CBS News Nightwatch, which premiered on October 3, 1982; that program was originally anchored by Christopher Glenn, Felicia Jeter, Karen Stone and Harold Dow, who were later joined by Mary Jo West. In 1984, production of Nightwatch moved from New York City to Washington, D.C., at which time Charlie Rose (who later returned to CBS News as co-anchor of CBS This Morning) and Lark McCarthy became the program's anchors. Nightwatch's format was a hybrid of a traditional newscast and an interview and debate show; during the original 1982 format, local affiliates had the option of inserting local news updates into the program.

Up to the Minute[edit]

CBS announced its decision to cancel CBS News Nightwatch in early 1992. Around this time, ABC and NBC were setting up their own late-night newscast programs (World News Now and NBC Nightside, respectively; only World News Now is still on the air) and replaced it with a more traditional news program in the same vein as the other two, titled Up to the Minute, on March 30, 1992. The program was originally anchored by Russ Mitchell and Monica Gayle, who both left the program in 1993 (Gayle subsequently became co-anchor of the CBS Morning News), and were replaced by Troy Roberts, at which point the program switched to the single-anchor format which it used for the rest of its run; production of the newscast returned to the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, situated in front of a working newsroom used by the affiliate news service CBS Newspath. Regular on-air contributors to Up to the Minute included John Quain, who served as the program's technology consultant beginning in 1998.

The program's on-air graphics package and set were often several years behind that of CBS News' daytime broadcasts, with components of the news division's early-1990s era graphics package being used on the program until 2005, when it began to follow the current look of the CBS Evening News. The newsroom behind the anchors was also covered by frosted-glass paneling, likely to hide the equally-outdated CBS News and Up to the Minute branding mounted along the walls. In March 2009, when Michelle Gielan was named anchor of Up to the Minute, production of the program was integrated with the CBS Morning News, with the same anchors being used on both programs.

In November 2012, Up to the Minute moved to Studio 57 at the CBS Broadcast Center, the same studio space that was also home to CBS This Morning. At that time, it became the last remaining news program on any of the big three networks or major cable news channels to begin broadcasting in high-definition (by comparison, the CBS Morning News had upgraded to HD two years earlier in November 2010).

CBS Overnight News[edit]

On June 25, 2015, Newsday reported that CBS News had decided to cancel Up to the Minute but planned on retaining the 3 a.m. timeslot for news programming.[1][2] Up to the Minute ended its run after 23 years on September 18, 2015. The program was replaced three days later on September 21 by the CBS Overnight News. In terms of content, the show is largely unchanged from its predecessor, except that it no longer has a dedicated anchor. Stories re-aired from the CBS Evening News are introduced by that program's anchor using footage from its earlier broadcast, while other segments are linked by CBS News correspondents from a secondary studio.[3][4]

Anchors[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Chris Ariens (June 25, 2015). "CBS News 'Up to the Minute' to End". TVNewser. Mediabistro.com.
  2. ^ Verne Gay (June 25, 2015). "CBS News to drop 'Up to the Minute' in September". Newsday. Cablevision Systems Corporation.
  3. ^ Michael P. Hill (September 22, 2015). "CBS debuts 'Overnight News' with familiar look". NewscastStudio. HD Media Ventures, LLC. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
  4. ^ "'CBS Overnight News' got a new look this week too". NewscastStudio. 2019-12-06. Retrieved 2024-02-15.

External links[edit]