“We believe that great drama belongs in primetime between 8-11 PM, not at 7 in the morning,” Moonves quipped, as a photo of Ann Curry and Matt Lauer from Curry’s departure from “Today” appeared on stage behind him (see the photo to the left).

Of course, “CBS This Morning” also had a talent change in the last year, as Erica Hill left (eventually joining NBC) and Norah O’Donnell came on board. That said, the transition was free of drama in front of the cameras.

CBS News was given prime placement at the upfront, with Moonves introducing the division. The CBS CEO said that “under the leadership of Jeff Fager and David Rhodes there is a renaissance going on,” before introducing a clip reel with news from the last year. Scott Pelley and O’Donnell then appeared on stage to talk about CBS News.

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In the year since it launched, the program is up +3% in total viewers and +5% in households compared to a year ago.

At the very end of the program this morning, Rose and King acknowledged the milestone, with King noting that she was wearing the same dress she wore on that first day. This weekend, King, Rose and O’Donnell will host an anniversary party for ‘CTM” staffers.

After the jump, our tour of the morning show.
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For our series “Cubes,” we go behind the scenes at media companies of all stripes. In the world of television, “ABC World News” anchor David Muir showed us around ABC News, while former “CBS This Morning” co-anchor Erica Hill (who is now at NBC’s “Today”) took us around the CBS Broadcast Center. NBC, the ball is in your court.

Cubes: Tour of ABC News Headquarters

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On ABC, weekday anchor George Stephanopoulos will anchor “Good Morning America” from Newtown. Elizabeth Vargas will join him from New York. ABC’s Josh Elliott, Amy Robach and Dan Harris will report from the scene in Newtown.

NBC’s “Today” will also have the weekday team in, with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie anchoring from Newtown. Lester Holt, Erica Hill, Ann Curry and Willie Geist will contribute to the program.

Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis will anchor “CBS This Morning Saturday” from Newtown. CBS will also preempt “48 Hours” Saturday night for a special report on the shooting at 10pmET.

Fox News will be live at 5amET with “Fox & Friends First.” An expanded edition of “Fox & Friends” will air from 6-10amET, and will be simulcast on FBN. The 10am-noon business block will be preempted for live coverage anchored by Jon Scott and Jenna Lee. Scott will also host an expanded two-hour “Fox Report” beginning at 6pmET. Mike Huckabee‘s program will be live from NYC at 8pmET and Jeanine Pirro and Geraldo Rivera will host their primetime shows from Newtown.

MSNBC will focus on the shooting during regularly-scheduled programming and will be live until at least 7pmET Saturday night.

On CNN, Ali Velshi and Jon Berman will anchor from 6-9amET. Soledad O’Brien will anchor from 9-11amET, Wolf Blitzer will anchor from 11am-1pmET and Don Lemon will anchor from 1-3pmET. O’Brien will anchor from 3-5pmET, and Blitzer and Kate Bolduan will anchor from 5-8pmET. Anderson Cooper will anchor from 8-9pmET,  Lemon and O’Brien will anchor from 9-10pmET, and Cooper will take over again from 10-11pmET.

On HLN, Nancy Grace will host a special on the shooting tonight at 8pmET. Dr. Drew Pinsky will host a special live hour at 9pmET.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The averages for November 2012, Saturdays:

• Total Viewers: ABC: 3.701M / NBC: 3.499M / CBS: 1.680M

• A25-54 viewers: ABC: 1.330M / NBC: 1.149M / CBS: 629K

On Sundays, “Sunday Morning” on CBS is still the choice for most viewers, handily winning all measurements. In fact, CBS’s 5.44 million viewers tops the November average of the weekday editions of “GMA,” “Today” and “CBS This Morning.”

ABC and NBC split second place on Sunday: “GMA” was #2 in total viewers (despite not airing on ABC affiliates in markets including Atlanta and Orlando) while “Today” took second place in younger viewers. Former “CBS This Morning” anchor Erica Hill jumped to NBC News in November and now co-anchors the Saturday and Sunday editions of “Today.”

The averages for November 2012, Sundays:

• Total Viewers: CBS: 5.443M / ABC: 3.479M / NBC: 3.361M

• A25-54 viewers: CBS: 1.657M / NBC: 1.160M / ABC: 1.139M

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Video after the jump…

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In addition, NBC has named Jenna Wolfe newsreader for “Weekend Today,” and she will continue to contribute as a correspondent to the weekday edition of the morning program. Wolfe had been co-anchor of the Sunday edition of the program. Dylan Dreyer will remain in her role as weather anchor for the program.

“I couldn’t be happier to have such a strong team in place with Lester, Erica, Jenna and Dylan,” said Dee Dee Thomas, executive producer of ‘Weekend Today’ in a statement. “We just celebrated 25 years of weekends here at TODAY, and this is the perfect ensemble to lead us towards our next milestone.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

CBS said it has been trying to find a new job for Hill … Now, it appears the network has let her out of her contract so she can jump to NBC.

Hill became the weekend anchor of “The Early Show” in 2008, splitting her time between CBS and CNN. She left CNN in 2010 when she was named weekday anchor of “The Early Show.”

The weekend edition of “Today” is anchored by Lester Holt and, on Sunday, by Jenna Wolfe. In May, Saturday co-anchor Amy Robach left NBC for ABC where she has been recently been filling in for Robin Roberts on “GMA.”

Earlier this year, Hill gave MediabistroTV a tour of CBS News for an episode of “Cubes.” Watch it after the jump. continued…

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(l-r) CBS News President David Rhodes, Norah O'Donnell, Erica Hill

Just seven months into existence, “CBS This Morning” will see its biggest change since launch, when Norah O’Donnell replaces Erica Hill come the Fall.

CBS News president David Rhodes says the move has been in the works for a little while.

“This has been an ongoing discussion, we look at every one of these broadcasts very closely, always looking for things that can be improved,” Rhodes tells TVNewser. “We have had a couple of different people at the table since we launched in January, and Norah just stood out.”

With the addition of O’Donnell, Hill’s future is up in the air at CBS.

“We are talking to her about a new role, but it is obviously premature how it is going to go,” Rhodes says. As for O’Donnell’s slot at the White House, Rhodes says those discussions are just beginning.

“There is a lot of interest in that, and obviously we didn’t begin those conversations until today, because we couldn’t, but I have every expectation that we are going to fill the role internally,” he says.

O’Donnell’s expertise in politics was a driving force behind the decision to add her to the team. Rhodes says he expects O’Donnell to begin her regular appearances on the show for the political conventions in Tampa and Charlotte at the end of August and early September.

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CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Norah O’Donnell has been named co-host of “CBS This Morning” replacing Erica Hill who first came to CBS News in 2008, while still with CNN, to co-anchor the weekend “Early Show.” In January, 2010 she joined CBS fulltime.

O’Donnell will join co-hosts Charlie Rose and Gayle King beginning this fall. CBS says Hill’s future with CBS News is being discussed.

“CBS This Morning,” while still the #3 show in the morning, has been making ratings gains of late. Last week, the show was up +7% in total viewers and up +6% in younger viewers compared to the same week last year when “Early Show” was in production. O’Donnell filled-in on the show last week.

“This is a very exciting development for our morning program and for all of CBS News,” says CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager. “Norah is an accomplished reporter with all the skills for the job. She’s a hard worker who knows her story and, as she has shown time after time at the White House, she can think on her feet on live television.”

O’Donnell joined CBS News a year ago, after spending 11 years at NBC News and MSNBC. She will continue as Bob Schieffer‘s substitute on “Face the Nation.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“CBS This Morning’s” Erica Hill, a friend of Cooper’s from her days at CNN, discussed his coming out with country music artist Chely Wright, who revealed two years ago that she’s gay. Video after the jump.

ABC’s overnight show “World News Now,” which Cooper once anchored, gave it a mention as did the pre-GMA show, “America This Morning.” “Good Morning America” didn’t.

On NBC’s “Today,” Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford talked about it on the 4th hour. “He is a sweet guy,” said Gifford. “We just wish everybody to be happy.”

It also was the subject earlier on “Today’s Professionals.” The panelists, Star Jones, Donny Deutsch and Dr. Nancy Snyderman, all seemed to take the cynical route, arguing that Cooper made the announcement for some sort of ratings gain. They seemed to be unaware that his daytime talk show is on hiatus, and that Cooper is in Africa on assignment, not hosting his CNN program.

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TVNewser hears that among the attendees were NBC’s Brian Williams, HBO’s Bryant Gumbel, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, CNN’s Piers Morgan and CBS’ Charlie Rose and Erica Hill.

This morning, ABC’s “Good Morning America” interviewed the series’ star, Jeff Daniels, who plays anchor Will McAvoy. Stephanopoulos asked Daniels whether the series was based on former MSNBC and Current TV host Keith Olbermann:

“No one, sorry Keith, no one. We really decided, let’s create someone completely fictional, and just drop them in the middle of all the guys who exist that we know today,” Daniels said. “Aaron never said ‘by the way, this is based on so and so.’”

“Aaron will tell you that it is a romantic view of what cable news should be, or should strive to be,” Daniels added.

WATCH:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of CBS News.  In this episode of mediabistroTV’s “Cubes,” Erica Hill, co-host of “CBS This Morning,” shows us around the CBS Broadcast Center.

Located on Manhattan’s west side, the building is home to the “CBS Evening News,” the iconic CBS news desk, and the brand-new studio and newsroom of “CBS This Morning.”

For more mediabistroTV videos, check out our YouTube channel, and be sure to follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The broadcast networks joined their cable counterparts carrying Pres. Obama’s news conference from the briefing room this morning. The economy — both domestic and global — was the reason for calling the newser. Lester Holt anchored on NBC, George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer on ABC, and Charlie Rose and Erica Hill on CBS.

Normally very punctual, the president started about 20 minutes late. “He’s probably either talking to somebody about something or oblivious to the time,” joked Bill Plante on CBS. “Who is going to tell him? He’s the boss.”

The president began at 10:40amET and by 10:48, the first question went to Caren Bohan, with the president remarking about her upcoming job change.

“I’ll start with Caren, who is with Reuters, but as we all know is about to go get a fancy job with National Journal and we’re very proud of her, so congratulations to you, Caren. You get the first crack at me.”

Other questions went to Jackie Calmes of the New York Times and David Jackson of USA Today. Jackson asked about national security leaks recently reported in stories in the New York Times. None of the TV reporters were called on, but as the president left the briefing room at 11:07, one said: “Can we ask you about Wisconsin?” He didn’t answer.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“We are at a point now where the operations of the show are a well-oiled machine, or at least getting there,” EP of “CBS This Morning” Chris Licht tells TVNewser. “Everyone is in a rhythm, they know what their job is, we have some stability, and now we are at the end of phase one of many phases, and now it is just every day looking to make it better.”

The anniversary was not the focus of the show, but it was given a brief mention at the end by anchors Erica Hill, Gayle King and Charlie Rose. On social media platforms, producers sparked conversation with viewers using the #100Mornings hashtag.

“For a show like this to launch cleanly, every part of this building had to really reinvent themselves,” Licht says. “Because we did things differently, from the engineering department to the editing department, photography, everybody had to be on board with this, and there is no way we would have launched so cleanly had not everyone in the building really pulled together under Jeff [Fager] and David [Rhodes] and said ‘ok, we are going to make this work.’”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.