Entertainment

NEW YORK (AP) ― CBS News relaunched "The Early Show" Monday with a new set, a new leader and an end to the "blended" format where some 43 stations — covering 20 percent of the country — ditched much of the national feed for its own local programming.

With the changes, CBS News executives aim to challenge the morning news leaders at NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Good Morning America."

For many affiliates, it's a risky leap. It means giving up on a format where they led or were competitive in the ratings at 7 a.m. in favor of a network show that has been No. 3 for decades, no matter what CBS has tried to do differently.

Scott Blumenthal, chairman of the CBS affiliate board, is an executive at Lin Broadcasting, which owns a station in Buffalo that is No. 1 in the morning ratings and another in Indianapolis that is No. 2.

He understands the CBS point of view. The blended format, where stations didn't join the network feed until after 18 minutes of local news, robs "The Early Show" of a chance to establish its own identity and limits its flexibility.

"Does that make me any less nervous about possibly losing some audience and revenue?" Blumenthal said. "No, but we're going to make a go of it."

"The Early Show" format retains host Harry Smith, who has quietly become a CBS News stalwart and chief substitute in the evening for Katie Couric. He's joined by veteran Julie Chen and newcomer Maggie Rodriguez, who worked in Miami local news for seven years and served a brief apprenticeship at CBS' weekend morning news before moving to "The Early Show" in December. Rodriguez replaced Hannah Storm.

Driving the train for the past few months has been executive producer Shelley Ross, who promises a more aggressively competitive program.

"We are about the news first and the content first," Ross said. "We're going to really demonstrate that we're not your grandmother's morning show."

Ross is a morning show force of nature, who took over "Good Morning America" when there were serious questions about its survival. She brought it back, waging pitched behind-the-scenes booking battles with "Today." But her combative personality wore thin on some colleagues and she was yanked from the broadcast after four years in 2004, and she eventually left ABC News.

"With a fierce passion and inexhaustible energy, she simply would not allow anyone on the staff to accept second best," "GMA" anchor Charles Gibson said at the time.

Her style became evident her first week at CBS. She found that "The Early Show" had no separate booking department to chase after guests, assigning those duties to low-level producers. That quickly changed.

One of her pleasant surprises was that the staff was ready to charge into battle, she said. "It was really like flipping a light switch for everybody," she said.

She said she hopes to jump on stories more quickly than rivals. CBS led the broadcast with Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan, and said the other morning shows had to pay catch-up during the subsequent first attempt on the former leader's life in October.

When Ross heard tape of a 911 call where the operator had to tell the caller not to hyperventilate, she ordered up a segment on keeping calm in a crisis.

"I have a different gut on stories and how to handle them, what angle to cover," she said. "I know I'm different. I don't necessarily follow the pack."

Ross is otherwise circumspect about her plans — no shock in a competitive business — but is looking forward to sharpening the news content in the first half hour. Not having to make sure there is a commercial each day at 7:18 followed by a stand-alone segment gives her more freedom, she said.

She said she's excited about Rodriguez, who can offer a new look at morning show chestnuts. And she's enthusiastic about Chen, whose connections — she's married to CBS Corp. boss Leslie Moonves — and her gig as host of "Big Brother" make critics frequently question her news chops.

"Who wouldn't love to have the opportunity to have a Julie Chen and know the president of the company is watching your show every morning?" Ross said.

Changing viewers' habits is notoriously difficult in the morning, where "Today" hasn't lost a week in the ratings for more than a decade. "The Early Show" is averaging 2.78 million viewers a morning this season, essentially the same as a year before. "Today," where the audience has dipped from 5.76 million last season to 5.55 million now, doubles CBS' viewership. ABC's 5 million viewers is marginally up from 4.94 million last season, according to Nielsen Media Research.

"Taking over a morning show is like occupying the White House," Ross said. "These are institutions and we have to hope that our administration leaves it in better shape than the last one."

Blumenthal reacted suspiciously to the changes when they were announced last summer, primarily because he said CBS moved forward without telling its affiliates what to expect.

He's since become more assured because of a "sense of can-do spirit" and the feeling that CBS News will put its resources behind the stated goal of becoming more competitive in the morning.

He won't set any deadlines for marking progress.

"We'll give it a reasonable amount of time," Blumenthal said. "We'll be able to see with the production values and the ratings where it's going."

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