CBS News will launch a live third hour of CBS MORNINGS on television and streaming named CBS MORNINGS PLUS, which will debut Monday, Sept. 30 with Tony Dokoupil and Adriana Diaz as co-hosts. CBS MORNINGS PLUS (9:00-10:00 AM, ET) will air weekdays on CBS-owned stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit and Miami and simulcast on CBS News 24/7, CBS News’ national, free streaming news network.
CBS MORNINGS PLUS will be produced by the award-winning CBS MORNINGS team and take viewers deeper into the most important headlines of the day, as well as pop culture, entertainment, health, wellness and financial news. Dokoupil, who will continue as co-host of CBS MORNINGS, and Diaz, will drive in-depth interviews and original reporting on major news stories each day during the new live hour.
“CBS MORNINGS PLUS is a great example of how our broadcast and beyond strategy is leveraging the strengths of our most important brands to grow the audience and position CBS News and Stations for the future. At the same time, it highlights our commitment to delivering best-in-class journalism on every platform,” said Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures. “We are building on the momentum of CBS MORNINGS and giving audiences more of the signature storytelling and differentiated reporting that they have come to expect from CBS News in the mornings.”
“This expansion of CBS MORNINGS shows a commitment to the brand, and I’m excited to see what this team can do with another hour of real estate to experiment with,” said Shawna Thomas, executive producer of CBS MORNINGS and CBS MORNINGS PLUS. “People say all the time they wish we had another hour. Now it’s time for us to do something smart with the time that the audience will appreciate.”
CBS MORNINGS, co-hosted by Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil and Nate Burleson, with Vlad Duthiers as featured host, is the most competitive morning news program in the history of the CBS Television Network. During the 2023-24 season, CBS MORNINGS has beaten “Good Morning America” a record 61 times with men 25-54 and a record 15 times in adults 25-54, the demographic most important to those who advertise in news. Every weekday, CBS MORNINGS delivers the best of CBS News and Stations’ original reporting, newsmaker interviews and in-depth storytelling from a state-of-the-art studio in Times Square. CBS MORNINGS earned the 2022 Outstanding Live News Program Emmy Award.
Tony Dokoupil is a co-host of CBS MORNINGS and has covered and anchored on the ground some of the biggest stories in recent memory, including the wildfire in Maui, Hawaii; the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol; the Uvalde, Texas, elementary shooting; and the war in Ukraine. He has interviewed a variety of artists, entertainers and newsmakers, among them former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, comedy legend Steve Martin and music superstars Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt. Dokoupil is also the author of the critically acclaimed book The Last Pirate: A Father, His Son and the Golden Age of Marijuana.
Adriana Diaz joined CBS News in 2012 and has served as anchor of the Saturday edition of the CBS WEEKEND NEWS, CBS News’ Asia correspondent based in China and a Chicago-based correspondent. At the start of 2023, Diaz and the CBS News team broke the story of the discovery of classified documents at a Washington think tank from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president. She has interviewed newsmakers such as former NFL star Colin Kaepernick, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Olympian Allyson Felix. Diaz spent a month covering the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and was part of the CBS News team that won an Outstanding News Special Emmy for 39 DAYS, a primetime documentary about the Parkland student movement. Diaz speaks Spanish and advanced French and Mandarin.