Thanks guys. I see. You’d think the show would evolve still however. I just found a clip from 1984 on YouTube and the set and theme are both almost identical.
In regards to CBS Mornings - I don’t mind the look, I just didn’t understand why they tapped into the Sunday Morning show 
Pauley actually reminds me of Liz Hayes. Her charm and elegance, added with her credentials makes the show much more lively compared to how it is presented visually.
It’s clear that Sunday Morning still runs on a successful but dull (by today’s standards) formula. Hopefully CBS doesn’t take that path because the weekday audience is very different to the Sunday one.
I think the Sunday Morning set got a refresh at around 2009 which looked heaps better. No idea why they reverted to the dreadful and dull 1980s colours in recent years.
Compare this
To this
The team dynamic has stepped up a notch with Nate. He’s slipped right in. They did a segment introducing him and it just felt so… what you need in the morning.
I reckon they should just ditch the sun logo. And just keep the eye logo with the CBS MORNINGS logo.
For example like this one;
On top of what has already been mentioned, Sunday Morning is by far CBS News’ only successful morning programming. The show attracts 5.5-6 million viewers every Sunday, compared to the 3-3.5 million viewers that GMA (the highest rated show) attracts on M-F. It’s a very successful program which explains why CBS would like to mimic that success 7 days a week. It won’t work however, there’s something nostalgic and comforting about the trumpets on a Sunday - it’s very jarring to hear on a Tuesday.
Something I had wondered about since the news of ‘CBS This Morning’ being relaunched (again), and taking on more ‘Sunday Morning’ elements was made public, is could adopting these heritage elements actually dilute the ‘Sunday Morning’ brand rather than strengthen it, since its longstanding theme and sun logo (although altered), are now used elsewhere and are no longer on one program as it has been for decades, aside from the weekday experimentation in the 1980s.
The soft set does look great!
It was literally a yellow CBS eye with block text.
Continues to handily best the others in 25-54 somehow, believe it or not. I’ve been hearing this intermittently for at least the last decade.
As for the new product itself, I think the scoring is a bit off - I appreciate that the show “gets up to speed” between the open and the Eyeopener and that there’s some versatility with the four-note stings they have, but the end is a bit of a letdown.
The lockups for the lower thirds are interesting, perhaps not my taste. The show title bug is oddly big and long (I’m generally against them, but can appreciate a more subtle approach if given one). Definitely agree with the CNN comment. If you’re going to have a tiny eye when the super is up, lose the eye in the title bug dammit. The standard design ticker, which is put in from local stations, is okay. Lots of lateral room for local branding. The Sunday Morning sun feels like a token element in the overall design - way more Eye than Sun.
I’ve seen a smattering of their segments on YouTube and it looks like there’s a natural distribution of what you might expect - hard news, features, softie/self-promoting bits (hope those are put in sparingly - I’ll give a pass for the first day) - but there’s a certain energy and flow to it that CTM struggled to find before the Gayle/Anthony/Tony team came about. I know the addition of Nate feels like a cheap counter to GMA, but honestly, he has the creds and his delivery of the hard news was pretty spot on, more than what I feel with Michael sometimes.
A revamp is always a work in progress before and after the official Day 1, but I’m feeling more or less ambivalent. It’s a slapdash package of corporate directives that the team has tried to accommodate best they can. How they evolve from here is what I’m more concerned about.
Looks good, new studio is great (hope they use more outside establishing shots), opener etc. is good. Totally get why they want to connect to CBS Sunday morning and have a proper 7 day a week brand. Sunday Today is totally different with Willie these days too (that itself copied CBS Sunday). Don’t even mind the trumpets - it gives you something totally different to Today and GMA which is good, and the team seems good.
Is this still used?
CBS is a very old-skewing station full stop. Indeed, they had 24 of the 25 oldest-skewing shows in the last US TV season.
Not surprised. To me their schedule (apart from Amazing Race and Survivor) is pretty boring with not much other than just crime procedural after crime procedural. I get it’s a legacy reason why they have so many but seriously don’t get any programming ideas from them if any networks want to be competitive.
CBS is also home to the most successful sitcoms of the last 20 years - Everybody Loves Raymond, Kings of Queens, TBBT, Mike & Molly, etc. they have had a stable crop of popular young skewing programs.
That Sunday Morning theme is iconic. The show skews very old, as does the set, but I think that’s part of its appeal. It’s not trying to mass market, you tune in and you know what you’re going to get: a pretty serious Sunday morning current affairs show.
Given CBS Mornings is less buttoned down, I’m surprised they didn’t try to give the theme a remix.
In a way, I wonder if the show bombs or goes too far downmarket whether that will tarnish the image of Sunday Morning.
Ross Dagan has been 10’s Network Director of News Content for the past three years.
CBS This Morning Saturday…
Oops 
