News stories from the previous day are often followed the next morning with related but less formal stories and celebrity interviews and discussion. When national disasters occur—hurricanes, earthquakes, plane crashes—the whole show may be dominated by news coverage of those events. Sometimes the morning anchors and crew go on location in order to feature a particular city or event. On such occasions, organizers, political leaders, dignitaries, and VIPs are interviewed on site. National weather reports are interspersed with sponsored announcements, birthday wishes, and other less formal moments, and the programs are formatted in such a way that local station breaks can be accommodated with ease. These breaks are important because they allow affiliates to provide local news, sports, and weather and to insert local commercials.

Morning shows are constructed in a style best termed as “modular programming”: short, unconnected segments are presented with no relationship between them. Modules rarely exceed four minutes, and most are shorter. This program design is based on programmer and producer perceptions of viewer activities—preoccupied with preparations for the day and unable to devote much time or attention to any one segment of the program.

In recent years, morning shows have returned to one of their earliest strategies and have begun to include live audiences in their format. Two approaches to audience participation have been introduced. The first enables people in the street to look into the studio from the outside. At times, these spectators can be distracting, raising signs and waving arms, presumably to attract attention from viewers “back home.” But they can be shut out by means of a mechanized cyclorama. This “fish bowl concept” was an aspect of the early years of Today, when Dave Garroway and the chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs were featured. On occasion, the hosts move outside to where people are standing on the sidewalk, interviewing a few selected visitors. The second approach to audience involvement includes a captive audience within the studio, similar to conventional talk shows. Inside the studio, the audience can be controlled much more easily, and consequently their behavior is more predictable and subdued.

The first network “early day” shows followed the patterns of successful radio programming and were not in the morning at all. In 1948 the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) scheduled Tex and Jinx, one of the popular morning radio talking couples, at the network’s then-earliest hour of 1:00 P.M., and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) showed, half an hour later, Missus Goes A-Shopping, a game show with popular radio host John Reed King. In the fall of 1948, Dumont, the weakest network, actually dared, before noon, a miscellany of variety and informational shows that survived until 1950 and were then forgotten. These earliest shows, however, also provided a chance for technical experiment. In August 1951, CBS offered at 10:30 A.M., an hour when hardly anyone would be watching, their own married couple, Mike Wallace and Buff Cobb, in Two Sleepy People, the first regularly scheduled network color show (the video portion of the signal could not be received by conventional black-and-white sets).

In 1952 the efforts to produce a successful morning show finally began to work. On January 7, Arthur Godfrey began simulcasting his popular radio show Arthur Godfrey Time, which proved just as popular on television, where it lasted until 1959. A week later (and also a week late), the greatest morning experiment began. Today began producing three hours a day (only two were broadcast in each time zone). When writer-producer Larry Gelbart attempted in an interview to define what “real television” was, he said “real television might have been the early Today show, with Dave Garroway standing in a window doing a show that no one had ever seen before, something that wasn’t borrowed from radio or the stage or motion pictures or newspapers.”

Today was one of the creations of NBC executive Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, who had carefully considered the needs of various special audiences and devised the responses that became Your Show of Shows, the prime-time variety show; Tonight, for the “sophisticated” late-night viewer; and Today, to address a range of viewers from those preparing to leave for work to the “homemaker” readying children for school and her own daily activities. In March 1954, Home with Arlene Francis began broadcasting—Weaver’s more specialized solution for the late-morning audience. Although influential on the design of succeeding daytime magazine shows, Home itself lasted only until 1957. In later decades, however, suggesting that Weaver’s strategies were appropriate, shows similar to Home abounded in late-morning times. They were often surrounded by popular game shows such as Strike It Rich, The Price Is Right, Concentration, and the early years of Jeopardy! In the 1960s and 1970s, reruns of evening shows were popular in late morning, and in recent decades, syndicated confrontation shows, such as those hosted by Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera, have flourished. The occasional variety show, such as David Letterman’s 1980 program, or even the rare soap opera, such as The Guiding Light, have also been programmed as morning offerings.

But it is the history of Today and the responses to it by other networks that has anchored the history of the morning genre. During its first year, Today had neither great audience nor critical success, although it achieved frequent mention in the news because of its window onto Rockefeller Center and its efforts to interview former President Harry Truman on his early morning New York walks. In its second year, the chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs joined the cast, and viewership, especially among families and children, began to increase.

In 1954 the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) entered the morning competition for a short time with a simulcast of its long-term popular radio show, Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club, which failed on TV after a year. In direct competition with Today, CBS began a remarkable morning variety show. The Morning Show, as it was called, had as its successive hosts for the three years it was on the air: Walter Cronkite, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson for a time as guest host, John Henry Faulk (until he was blacklisted), Dick Van Dyke, and Will Rogers Jr. Illustrating the wide range of viewers it sought to attract, the show’s regulars included Charles Collingwood, the Baird puppets, singers Merv Griffin and Edie Adams, and, as a writer, Barbara Walters. The show challenged Today with every strategy applicable to the variety-talk formulas— then finally gave up. In 1955 CBS substituted Captain Kangaroo for the second hour of The Morning Show. For over 25 years, the Captain remained in place, appealing to younger audiences but using many of Today’s segmented structure by programming regular visits by guests such as Dr. Joyce Brothers and Bill Cosby.

By the 1960s, it had become apparent that competition for the broadest possible morning audience would have to use a mix very similar to that created by Weaver for Today. Beginning in 1963 with a 25-minute show hosted by Mike Wallace, the CBS news division attempted to experiment with a response that was “not quite the same as” Today. In 1987 the CBS entertainment division briefly intruded on this process with the failed Morning Program, but CBS News returned in November 1987 with its final and continuing response to date: a full two-hour CBS This Morning. ABC did not begin its first serious challenge to Today until 1975, first with the short-lived A.M. America and then the still-continuing Good Morning, America, which became identified with its host, David Hartman, from 1976 to 1985 and has since had a succession of hosts.

Over the past four and a half decades, then, there have been continuous attempts and strategies for “balancing” the early morning newsmagazine formula. Garroway delivered entertainment, John Chancellor presented serious news, and Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters became a chatting couple. CBS focused on the newsroom, while ABC, with David Hartman, moved toward the living room. But many of the forms stayed constant: for example, the five-minute break for local news, the cheery weatherperson, and the occasional visit to other locales. There was also a gradual expansion of the format into the 6:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M. hour.

In the 1990s, as the number of available channels vastly increased, an expanding variety of specialized choices in the morning made NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning, America, and CBS This Morning appear to be venerable institutions that have withstood the test of time. However, cable television news and talk shows, which take advantage of low production costs and flexibility, may become even stronger competitors for the network morning programs in the future. If this is the case, the attempts will most likely follow patterns established by continuous trials in the network arena, trials that have resulted in some of the most familiar and regularized moments “brought to us” by television.

In the early 2000s, a variety of morning shows competed with the traditional programs. Three major competitors were American Morning on CNN, with Soledad O’Brien and Bill Hemmer; Fox and Friends, with anchors E.D. Hill and Brian Kilmeade; and MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning. Of these three new offerings, Fox and Friends is by far the most popular, based on audience shares. It is estimated that Fox and Friends has 1.2 million viewers, American Morning 753,000, and Imus in the Morning 364,000.

Competition from cable and the Internet and shrinking evening revenues have led the major networks to value the morning program slot more highly than ever. The morning is regarded as an extremely lucrative time slot (Today cleared $100 million in profits last year). Many of the morning television program studios have received expensive face-lifts, complete with giant Astrovision screens, bright lights, and custom-made windows offering excellent background views.