• The mayor of New York and the governor of Massachusetts will be on “Meet the Press” tomorrow, ahead of the Super Bowl. Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick will be joined by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on site at Lucas Oil stadium.
• Former “Early Show” anchor and lifelong New York Giants fan and season ticket holder Chris Wragge is in Indianapolis covering the game for WCBS-TV. Wragge tells FishbowlNY, “I made myself available. I said [to management], ‘If you want totally biased coverage, I’m your guy!”
• Former ESPN guy-turned GMA guy Josh Elliott is covering the Super Bowl for ABC News. So far his Twitter dispatches have included a run-in with his former ESPN colleague: “Sitting next to @ErinAndrews, enjoying a seltzer.” He also took in the NFL experience:

While the new CBS morning news was being unveiled uptown, Chris Wragge — who will not be a part of the show — was downtown emceeing the launch of AmberWatchTV. That’s where FishbowlNY’s Jerry Barmash caught up with Wragge, who was not surprised about not being a part of the new team.

“When I found out that the show was going to go in a totally opposite direction, it’s not like they replaced me with someone who is a similar version of me. [Charlie] provides a service to them that I can’t provide,” Wragge says.

“I’m being benched for a little while, but there is a second half,” laughs Wragge, the one-time sports anchor who also anchors WCBS’s 6pm news.

More of Wragge’s candid conversation over at FishbowlNY.

After much talk, first in Page Six, CBS News is bringing on Charlie Rose and Gayle King to front a revamped and, likely, renamed CBS morning news show.

An announcement is expected Tuesday, sources tell TVNewser.

The current anchors Erica Hill and Jeff Glor, who were named co-anchor and news anchor less than a year ago, will play a role in the new morning program.

Chris Wragge will rejoin WCBS — he’d already been named 6pm co-anchor — and work on other projects. The new show will continue to leave weather reports to CBS affiliates.

Rose is best known for his late night, “Charlie Rose” interview show on PBS and Bloomberg. But he’s worked on and off for CBS News over the years, including as a correspondent on “60 Minutes II.” King, has worked in local newsrooms in Baltimore, Kansas City and Hartford, but may be best known as Oprah Winfrey’s friend and confidant. The two met while working at CBS-owned WJZ-TV in Baltimore. King hosts “The Gayle King Show,” on Sirius radio for two hours every morning. The second hour is simulcast on OWN TV. King is also an editor-at-large on O, The Oprah Magazine.

CBS News reassembled the inner workings of the show last Friday slashing some positions while adding others.

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PBS interviewer Charlie Rose gets grilled by Howard Kurtz, and acknowledges that yes, he has had discussions with CBS News about joining “The Early Show”:

I’m having conversations with CBS because I’m a member of that family. I’m intrigued by the fact that they want to do it differently. They understand that their success will not lie in duplicating what’s already on morning television.

By “they want to do it differently, Rose is likely referring to the fact that CBS is refocusing its morning show to be heavy on serious, political news as a way to differentiate it against NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Rose is already a part of the CBS family, having been a contributor to “60 Minutes” and the now-defunct “60 Minutes II” since 1999. He was also an anchor and correspondent for CBS News earlier in his career.

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Yesterday we noted that CBS “Early Show” co-anchor Chris Wragge was dealing with a bout of food poisoning, and would return to work on today. As it turns out, food poisoning wasn’t the culprit. Rather, Wragge was afflicted with a gastrointestinal virus that has yet to leave his system.

“This is unlike anything I have experienced,” he tweeted.

As a result of the virus, his return to CBS is up in the air. Get well soon Chris!

Viewers of CBS “Early Show” and WCBS may have noticed that Chris Wragge has been absent the last few days. A vacation it isn’t: Wragge is suffering what sounds like a pretty severe case of food poisoning.

The issues seemed to start October 16, and culminated last night, when Wragge spent the evening in the ER (pictured right). From his Twitter feed:

“IV at the ER @ St. Luke’s. TY Dr. Garfein and ALL other dr.s and nurses for the wonderful care. #GettingBetter”

Followed by:

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The New York Times‘ Alessandra Stanley has been keeping an eye on CBS’s “Early Show,” and she likes what she sees … we think:

There isn’t much news you can use on “The Early Show” on CBS. It no longer offers dieting tips, barbecue recipes or audience makeovers. There are no pop concerts or “Growing Pains” cast reunions. “The Early Show” doesn’t plan weddings or even forecast rain — weather is delegated to local affiliates.

CBS’s morning show is at times so soberly focused on hard news that it looks almost like PBS or C-Span. Or worse: its stolid co-anchors, Chris Wragge and Erica Hill, stare into the camera with a bleak blue backdrop behind them that gives the show the look of a Soviet newscast in the Brezhnev era.

Stanely writes that the new, and still transformational format hasn’t moved the needle much. “Early” is still a distant third in the ratings behind the wedding planning “Today” show and the cast reunion-ific “Good Morning America.” If you’d like to follow ratings of the three morning shows, click here.

What is going on with the broadcast networks? They’re adding viewers when cable and the Internets say they shouldn’t be.

On Tuesday we told you about how the broadcast evening newscasts had grown their total viewership year-over-year, after 8 seasons of declining viewership.

And now, with the numbers complete for the 2010-11 season, Nielsen reports that for the first time since the 1992-93 TV season, all 3 morning newscasts grew in A25-54 viewers. And for the first time since the 2003-04 TV season, all 3 morning newscasts grew in Total Viewers.

NBC’s “Today” remains the leader in the mornings with a 744,00 total viewer lead on #2 ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “GMA” shows the most growth season-to-season: +10% in Total Viewers and +3% in A25-54 viewers. “Today” is up +2% in both measurements and CBS’s “Early Show” was up +1% in Total Viewers and up slightly in younger viewers.

One more note, the 9am hour of the “Today” show topped ABC’s “The View” in Total Viewers for the season. That’s the first time that’s happened since the 2006-07 season.

We’ll have the complete numbers a little later today…

CBS News’ “The Early Show” is preparing to leave its current studio at the General Motors Building and move to a new home at the CBS Broadcast Center, TVNewser has learned. “The Early Show” will move to the new offices and studio when construction has been completed, though an exact date was not given.

CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, president David Rhodes and VP of programming Chris Licht discussed the move with staff during a town hall meeting Thursday.

The new “Early Show” set will look very different than both NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and the employee workspace will have a layout that CBS News has not traditionally used. One attendee of the meeting said that Licht’s influence was apparent in the mockups, saying that the workspace was reminiscent of MSNBC’s newsroom design and layout. The new offices and studio will occupy space previously held by the CBS News digital team.

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Chris Wragge is training for the triathlon in Montauk, NY in October. But his training schedule is about to get a shakeup. Beginning Sept. 6, Wragge will anchor the 6pm news on WCBS while also continuing to co-anchor the network’s “The Early Show.”

“The added workload is going to be great,” jokes Wragge, whose contract with the Eye runs through 2014. We talked with Wragge, who joined CBS as sports director/anchor at WCBS in 2004, just after the announcement was made; about the move and about the rocky road “The Early Show” has been on of late.

TVNewser: How do you feel about this?

Wragge: Oh my God. Amazing. The added workload is going to be great. (laughs) Look I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I didn’t want to do it. These guys (at “The Early Show”) are my family now, but I also had a great family in local, with (WCBS execs) Peter Dunn and David Friend. The opportunity presented itself. I’m doing the 6 so it’s a little bit easier than before when I was doing the 5 and staying to do the 11.

TVNewser: How did it come about and when?

Wragge: Within the last couple of weeks. We opened the door. It was presented as a matter of the network guys allowing me to do it and allowing me to fit it in. If I do well over there it will help the “Evening News.” (WCBS at 6pm is the lead-in for the Scott Pelley national broadcast) It’s not like I’m going to another network. They left the ball in my court and said, ‘If you can do it, okay.’

TVNewser: You’ll be taking one day a week off “The Early Show” How will that work? Could it extend to more?

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