Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and the US Airways flight 1549 crew have been making headlines ever since they safely landed a jet with 155 people in the Hudson River. But their first television appearances since last month's crash served as a poignant reminder that the plunge into the icy water was more than some Hollywood fantasy.
"It was the worst, sickening pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the floor feeling I've ever felt in my life. I knew immediately it was very bad," Sullenberger told Katie Couric during his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday. "I knew immediately that this, unlike every other flight I'd had for 42 years, was ...
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Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
Sully's 15 minutes of fame are morphing into 60 Minutes and counting.
Viewers got a preview of Katie Couric's sitdown with Chesley Sullenberger, the hero pilot of Flight 1549, when she visited CBS's Early Show Friday to show an excerpt from the interview. The rest will air on Sunday's 60 Minutes. She also provided a preview on Thursday's Evening News.
"It was the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling I've ever felt in my life," Sullenberger says in the interview excerpt.
The Early Show will also devote its entire episode Monday to Flight 1549, which Sullenberger successfully touched down in New York City's Hudson River last month after bird strikes took out its engines. Guests will include ...
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Katie Couric by John Paul Filo/CBS
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric has landed the second broadcast network interview with Sarah Palin — the first such sit-down since the infamous Tina Fey-SNL skit.According to A HREF="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TV_COURIC_PALIN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-09-17-07-29-49 The Associated Press, CBS confirmed Couric will spend two days on the road with the Republican vice presidential candidate, as well as presidential hopeful John McCain.Couric's reports will air Sept. 29 and 30 on the CBS Evening News and The Early Show.No word on whether any of the interview will air on 60 Minutes.Will you be watching the next Palin interview with Katie Couric asking the tough questions? Or, would you rather re-watch the SNL skit with Tina Fey? — Erin FoxRelated• Sarah Palin Laughed Along with SNL• SNL Opener; Fey Scores!
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Can you believe it's already been fifteen years since scorned wife, Lorena Bobbitt, chopped off her husband John Wayne Bobbitt's little friend while he was sleeping? Now, fifteen years later, the 39-year-old appears to be a much more confident woman (mind you she's barely recognizable) with a whole lot more self-esteem since the days she was all over the tabloids.
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After just six months as Early Show's senior executive producer, Shelley Ross, has been dropped by CBS. Having turned around ABC's Good Morning America, things didn't fare as well at the Eye. Ross quickly became a controversial figure, seeing a rumored 21 staff departures, internal strife and general unhappiness all around. Her last day was March 6.Rick Kaplan, exec producer of the CBS Evening News, will take over temporarily, although his focus will shift to the morning program, including its 3:15 a.m. wake-up time. He told the Reporter, "[The Early Show's] built up some great momentum. Nobody wants the show to slow down or lose the energy that it's built up." Ross joined the show in the wake of another executive shake-up, so where this latest move will take the show will likely reveal itself in the early mornings to come. — Anna Dimond
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Dave Price, Harry Smith, Julie Chen, Maggie Rodriguez, and Russ Mitchell by John Filo/CBS
CBS' The Early Show has gone through a lot of changes over the years, but it hasn't managed to significantly move the ratings needle against NBC's Today or ABC's Good Morning America. Another attempt to jump-start the program starts Jan. 7, when for the first time since the late 1990s the program will be carried in its entirety by all of the CBS affiliates. There's also a new addition to the anchor team as Maggie Rodriguez moves from the Saturday Early Show to join Harry Smith, Julie Chen, Dave Price and Russ Mitchell on weekday duty. Executive producer Shelley Ross brought The Biz up-to-date about the changes ahead.TVGuide.com: So set us straight on what will change in terms of the affiliates.Ross: [What will change are the] viewers in very important cities like Las Vegas, Nashville and Baltimore, which represent about 23 percent of our affiliates, won't get the full Early Show. They just get parts of it and they get local programming. They dip in and out of our show. To those view...
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Maggie Rodriguez by John Paul Filo/CBS
CBS News has named Maggie Rodriguez to replace Hannah Storm as coanchor of The Early Show. Rodriguez is getting a shot on the weekday show after impressing CBS News brass with her work as a fill-in and as coanchor of the The Saturday Early Show. "In the past six months, Maggie has proved to be a remarkably good fit in morning news," CBS News president Sean McManus said in a statement. Rodriguez was a veteran of local news in Miami and Los Angeles before joining the network earlier this year. She joins Early Show coanchors Harry Smith and Julie Chen on Jan. 7. — Stephen Battaglio
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Hannah Storm by Monty Brinton/CBS
Hannah Storm is leaving her coanchor chair at CBS' The Early Show. The news division announced today that she will move into a new role at CBS News. A former sports reporter and studio host for NBC, Storm joined The Early Show in 2002, when the program moved to a multi-anchor format. A CBS News spokeswoman had no comment on whether Storm will be replaced. But the talk inside the news division is that execs are high on Maggie Rodriguez, a former Miami news anchor who has been coanchor of The Saturday Early Show since June 2007. It's likely she'll be moved over to the weekday program. — Stephen Battaglio
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Question: As a fan of your column, I know you dislike Big Brother, and I won't try to sway your opinion, but I have to say that I've been disappointed by how CBS has handled recent controversies about their reality shows like BB and Kid Nation. Every year I expect one or two contestants to be irksome and display some repugnant behavior, but as I'm sure you've heard, many contestants this season have been either vapid, racist, sexist, abusive or all of the above. Amber made deplorable comments about Jewish people, but most of us only found out about them because of the controversy that erupted outside of the normal CBS airings of the show. At the very least, I expected CBS to allow Amber to defend herself during the Early Show morning-after interview that Julie Chen usually conducts with evicted HouseGuests, but now they have blocked all interviews with Amber and the rest of the cast until after the finale airs. CBS could have taken the opportunity to show that any kind of bigotry, ...
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Melinda Doolittle, Blake Lewis and Jordin Sparks by Frank Micelotta/Fox
American Idols Live! tourists Jordin, Blake, Phil, Sanjaya, LaKisha, Haley, Gina, Melinda and the Chrises will preside over NASDAQ's closing bell today at 4 pm/ET.... Former University of Florida and NFL QB (and ABC Bachelor) Jesse Palmer has joined ESPN as a college-football analyst.... CBS is expected to name former GMA exec producer Shelley Ross as the new boss of The Early Show.... TNT is sticking with Law & Order reruns featuring Fred Thompson, despite his official candidacy for president of the United States. "Equal time" rules are not imposed on cablers, anyway.... Boston Legal: Season Three arrives on DVD Sept. 18.
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