At last but not least, a CBS Mornings 3rd hour program will finally make it on the air by the end of next month when NBC’s Today has been doing this for a long time while ABC’s Good Morning America also had success with their own third hour show but at lunchtime (1pm) for several years now when they first replaced The Chew (a daytime cooking show) back in mid-2018.
This won’t affect CBS Daytime plans regarding their new African-American focused soap opera called The Gates who will still replace the soon-to-be-defunct The Talk show at 2pm weekdays, with their first episode beginning in January 2025 and it will go for an hour of each episode.
Who will be the hosts for that new CBS Mornings 3rd hour show? It’s expected to be one of the CBS Mornings’ main host Tony Dokoupil and Adriana Diaz. We thought Dokoupil would replace the departing Norah O’Donnell for the Evening News job once the US Election is over this November but it looks like CBS will be doing things completely different where they will get a team of anchors onboard from across New York and Washington DC rather than for a like-for-like replacement for Norah. For example, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois will be co-hosting from New York with Lonnie Quinn providing weather contributions with Face The Nation’s Margaret Brennan playing a key role to Dickerson & DuBois from the nation’s capitol.
So a bit like employing three-person host strategy again from CBS Mornings but on evenings that will last 30 mins between 6.30-7pm as maybe they want to step back when it comes to the added costs of someone fronting the news with Norah wanting to take on a new challenge after a long-time hosting CBS’s Morning and Evening News programs rather than making more original reporting that is worthwhile to viewers nationwide & they would want to go with the latter option.
Also, what would the hour-long CBS Morning 3rd hour show look like? We don’t know for sure but expecting it will just be a quick recap of the news from overnight as if someone’s waking up that late & missing out the main show while adding a bit of a less serious feel from the main “hard news” one as if they’re replacing The Talk whose status is set to end this December.
And where we could tune in? It will be on CBS’s 24/7 News streaming channel which is free-to-view online straight after the two-hour CBS mornings block between 9-10am as well as on selected CBS-owned local TV stations & affiliates.
So it looks like for those CBS affiliate stations that isn’t owned by CBS, you can only view it online to begin with but you never know as it progresses over time like 6-12 months when you got Drew Barrymore’s show and other CBS Daytime programs to tune in throughout the day. I would suggest maybe the first 30 mins of the third-hour can be on CBS and the other 30 mins would be go to all of online and some CBS-owned local stations just like NBC does with their midday news bulletin called NBC News Daily where the main channel gets one hour at 12pm & if their viewers wish to watch the rest, then they can go online between 1 to 4pm. But that will be a long-term thing for CBS to sort out going into early next year for the 2025/26 TV season.
So there you have it, it’s been a long time coming for a CBS third hour morning show to make into air when they first looked at this back in 2012 under Gayle King with a medical-focused program called On Call & didn’t make it past the development stage. But glad it’s happening though as things will get a lot busier in the lead up to the election and the new year in 2025.