Lorey Sebastian/CBS
Tuned In+TV Networks | May 17, 2012

Upfronts Watch: CBS: Eye on the Prize

By James Poniewozik

Getting a show on CBS is a bit like taking a job with an old-line Fortune 500 company instead of a startup; a little stodgy, maybe, but with a nice pension and good benefits, and hey, where are you going to find that anymore?

+Remembrance | April 8, 2012

Mike Wallace and the Legacy of 60 Minutes

By Andrew Heyward
Mike Wallace

An appreciation of the late, great journalist by the former president of CBS News

+Photos Television | April 8, 2012

Mike Wallace, Veteran CBS Journalist: A Legacy of Tough Questions

By Leah Latella
American broadcast journalist Mike Wallace, dressed in a shirt decorated with jockeys, holds a script and performs into a radio microphone for the CBS radio program 'On a Sunday Afternoon,' November 18, 1954.

TIME looks back on the extraordinary legacy of the 60 Minutes correspondent.

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Tuned In+News Media | November 11, 2011

Charlie Rose and Gayle King, Together At Last on CBS’s Early Show

By James Poniewozik

One of the very first articles I wrote for TIME magazine was about CBS trying to relaunch its low-rated morning show, The Early Show, with a new anchor team. It hired Bryant Gumbel (remember him?) and Jane Clayson (remember her?) and plopped them in a voguish glass-walled studio (remember those?). And then—not much. The Early [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | September 27, 2011

Can’t Complain: Andy Rooney to Step Down from 60 Minutes

By James Poniewozik

Don’t you hate when a fixture of the past several decades of your life comes to an end, reminding you of your own inexorable process of aging? That will happen this Sunday, when 60 Minutes’ Andy Rooney, the proud original H8R, will announce that he is ending his regular commentaries at the end of 60 Minutes.

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 10, 2011

CBS, for Some Reason, to Try Remaking Bewitched

By James Poniewozik

From the Dept. of Things You Were Not Aware You Asked For: CBS has ordered a script for a remake of the ’60s sitcom Bewitched. What sorcery is at work here? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that people who remember Bewitched fondly do more so out of affection—for the charms [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 3, 2011

CBS Unveils Ashton Kutcher's New Character: Walden Schmidt, Man of Mystery

By James Poniewozik

America, meet Walden Schmidt. At the introductory CBS session of the TCA TV critics’ press tour, CBS programming head Nina Tassler had some news about Ashton Kutcher’s new character, who will take over for Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men this fall. Tassler described Schmidt, who will be introduced in a two-part season [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 5, 2011

Comedy Central to Roast the Notoriously Media-Shy Charlie Sheen

By James Poniewozik

File this under Things the World Does Not Necessarily Need But Will Get Ratings Anyway: Comedy Central will air a roast of Charlie Sheen on Sept. 19. That is, coincidentally (which is to say, I assume not coincidentally), the night the new Two and a Half Men lineup with Ashton Kutcher returns on CBS. All [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 19, 2011

Upfronts 2011: CBS Unveils New Shows, Erases Sheen and Couric

By James Poniewozik

The TV upfronts are a big fast car with no rear-view mirror. The shining vista of the future is extolled. The good times of the present are celebrated. And the flaming car wrecks of the past, littering the highway behind? Never happened! Moving forward! CBS, to be fair, is doing well enough not to need [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 18, 2011

Upfronts 2011: CBS Keeps It Simple

By James Poniewozik

Every spring, the daffodils bloom in April, kids start playing baseball again, and I get to type the sentence: “Emphasizing the stability of its lineup, CBS announced a fall schedule with just a handful of changes.” CBS is strong, and it is stable; it’s arguably the only TV network left able to put together a [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 13, 2011

Reports: Two and a Half Men Minus Sheen, Plus Kutcher

By James Poniewozik

Myriad reports out this morning say that CBS will retool its hit Two and a Half Men by replacing ousted cautionary tale Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher. (Kutcher teased toward a confirmation on his Twitter feed.) One almost wonders whether the network simply decided to twist the knife in Sheen by picking someone, anyone, with [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | May 3, 2011

Scott Pelley Named as CBS's Anti-Couric

By James Poniewozik

CBS News made official today what had been unofficial for a while: Scott Pelley will succeed Katie Couric as anchor of The CBS Evening News, starting June 6. The announcement is pretty much the opposite of everything Couric’s was: it’s not groundbreaking, risky or surprising. He’s a competent, well-known CBS fixture—and falls into a reliable [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | April 28, 2011

Lara Logan Speaks Out About Her Assault

By James Poniewozik

Over two months after she was badly beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, CBS’s Lara Logan is recounting the ordeal for Sunday’s 60 Minutes (I can’t embed the CBS video in our blog template, but here’s a link). She’s also done an interview with the New York Times’ Brian Stelter, [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | April 26, 2011

It's Official: Katie Couric Leaving CBS Evening News

By James Poniewozik

The Great Katie Experiment is over: Katie Couric has announced, via an interview with TIME sibling People magazine, that she is leaving CBS as evening news anchor. CBS brought Couric on in 2006 to bring in star power, generate buzz and grow the audience. She accomplished the first two. About her third-place struggle at the [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | April 4, 2011

Katie Couric Reportedly Leaving; Can Anyone Get You to Watch CBS News?

By James Poniewozik

An Associated Press press report cites an unnamed CBS network executive as saying that Katie Couric, as long rumored, is leaving the CBS Evening News as anchor to launch a talk show. The departure—which official network reps and Couric’s people met with non-denial no-comments—would be at an undetermined date; her contract is up in June. [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | March 7, 2011

Charlie Sheen Gets Fired. But Two and a Half Men Could Go On

By James Poniewozik

Confirming something that I suspect most Americans thought had already happened, Warner Bros. Television announced that it is immediately terminating Charlie Sheen from Two and a Half Men, following the actor’s stints in and out of rehab, restraining orders, allegations of violence and rambling weeklong media bender. The decision means a likely bonanza for Sheen’s [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | February 28, 2011

Interview With the Warlock: Charlie Sheen Puts On Another Show

By James Poniewozik

Did Charlie Sheen hire Rod Blagojevich’s media handler? Over the past week, as you’re well aware, Sheen self-immolated, lambasting CBS and Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre for putting his sitcom on hiatus for the actor to get control of his bizarre behavior (the latest in a long series that included drug abuse [...]

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Tuned In+News Media | February 15, 2011

Lara Logan Beaten, Sexually Assaulted by Mob in Egypt

By James Poniewozik

Disturbing news from Egypt: CBS News just issued a statement that reporter Lara Logan “was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” by a mob while covering the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s Egyptian government in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday. According to the network, Logan was separated from her crew and [...]

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Tuned In+Advertising | August 4, 2010

Sponsors Won't Punish $#*! for Bad Language, Will for Bad Ratings

By James Poniewozik

I’m not going to pretend you didn’t see this coming, but the Parents Television Council has called on advertisers to boycott CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, based on the Twitter feed shitmydadsays and the subsequent book. “Unless or until CBS chooses a different title for this program, we are urging advertisers to avoid sponsoring [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 29, 2010

TCA Roundup: Julie Chen's Hat Trick

By James Poniewozik

News, and “news,” from CBS’s day at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles: * Did you know that Les Moonves, president of CBS Corporation, is married to CBS personality Julie Chen? And did you know that, just coincidentally, Julie Chen happens to be the most talented person at the entire CBS network, [...]