‘Morning Program’ Bows Out Bravely on CBS

With co-host Roland Smith vowing “we’re going out with a bang, not a whimper,” CBS’ “The Morning Program” ended Friday with taped highlights and co-host Mariette Hartley’s second farewell in 10 days.

The 90-minute show, which on Jan. 12 succeeded the “CBS Morning News,” was axed because of low ratings. It is being succeeded on Monday by “CBS This Morning,” co-anchored by Kathleen Sullivan and Harry Smith.

The latter is CBS News’ latest attempt, after a string of ratings failures going back to 1963, to compete in the morning against ABC Entertainment’s “Good Morning America” and NBC News’ “Today.”

CBS’ “The Morning Program,” produced by a non-news unit, emphasized light features, comedy and celebrity interviews instead of news as an alternative for viewers, particularly female viewers.

But save for its opening week, when it averaged a 3.1 rating, the show ran a distant third to its rivals, finally forcing CBS to drop it.

According to A.C. Nielsen ratings for network morning shows this season through Nov. 15, the CBS show has averaged a 2.1 rating, “Today” a 4.4 and “Good Morning America” a 4.5 (each ratings point represents 886,000 homes). Morning-show ratings for last week were unavailable Friday because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Hartley bid viewers goodby Nov. 17 when she took an early leave from “The Morning Program” to begin work on a new movie. Although Sandy Hill had been substituting for her since then, the actress, briefly fighting tears, returned Friday to say farewell again during the show’s closing minutes.

Most of Friday’s finale consisted of taped “Morning Program” highlights of segments on comedy, fashion, food and celebrities.

But there also was what seemed a rebuttal to critics who, as Smith noted, had called the program “frivolous.” It consisted of excerpts from 12 serious interviews, including one with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.