Jane Pauley to succeed Charles Osgood as host of ‘CBS Sunday Morning’

Jane Pauley is back on the morning shift. Charles Osgood is handing the “CBS Sunday Morning” baton to the former “Today” co-host, who will be the new anchor of the news program.

The move was announced at the end of Osgood’s final appearance as host of the program he took over 22 years ago. Pauley will be just the third anchor in the 37-year history of the program known for its soothing tone and literate storytelling. Osgood took over for Charles Kuralt, the program’s first anchor, in 1994.

Osgood, 83, announced in August that he is retiring from CBS News after 50 years at the network, although he will still be heard on CBS Radio. The bow tie he wore on his last “CBS Sunday Morning” broadcast is being donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

For Pauley, 64, “CBS Sunday Morning” will be her first regular anchor role on a news program since she left NBC’s “Dateline” in 2003. She spent a year as the host of her own syndicated talk show in 2004 and did mostly specials and occasional segments on NBC’s “Today” in the 10 years that followed.

Pauley joined CBS News in 2014 as a contributor to “CBS Sunday Morning” and became a frequent fill-in for Osgood. It has been widely anticipated that she would be his successor as permanent anchor. She will take over Oct. 9.

“Jane Pauley is the ideal host for the most wide-ranging news program on American culture, our beloved ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ broadcast,” CBS News President David Rhodes said in a statement. “Charles Osgood is a television news legend — and so is Jane Pauley.”

Pauley has a long network TV track record that goes back to 1976 when she was a 24-year-old Midwestern local news anchor who succeeded Barbara Walters as the co-host of NBC’s “Today” alongside Tom Brokaw. Teamed with Bryant Gumbel on “Today” in the 1980s, she became one of television’s most popular personalities. She left “Today” in 1989 and became co-anchor of “Dateline” in 1992.

Pauley had her three children during her run on “Today,” which raised the country’s awareness of women balancing motherhood with a career. She is married to “Doonesbury” cartoonist Gary Trudeau, whom she met through Brokaw.

Pauley is joining a franchise that has seen its ratings grow in recent year while the rest of the broadcast TV business has faced audience erosion. “CBS Sunday Morning” finished the 2015-16 season with an average of 5.92 million viewers, an increase of 1% from the previous year and its largest audience overall in at least 28 years according to Nielsen.

Follow me @MeredithBlake

ALSO

Samantha Bee says Jimmy Fallon and NBC ‘tacitly condoned race-baiting demagogue’ Donald Trump

Following criticism from NBC chairman, Donald Trump will visit ‘Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ this week

Jimmy Kimmel’s confident Emmys performance was in sync with TV’s new bold age