A Sunday morning talk show is a television program with a news/talk/public affairs–hybrid format that is broadcast on Sunday mornings. This type of program originated in the United States, and has since been used in other countries.
Overview
These programs typically focus on current events that occurred during the previous week, with a main focus on political and sociopolitical topics. These programs often feature national leaders in politics and public life as guests to discuss the topics featured in that week's broadcast, in the form of one-on-one interviews with the program's moderator on a particular story as well as roundtable discussions in a multiple-topic debate format involving the moderator and a panel of guests. Depending on the country, some programs may also incorporate contribution reports from members of the network or television station's reporting staff on certain news stories featured in that week's edition. However, if breaking news occurs during the program, the regular format is often unseen or limited that week in order to provide rolling live news coverage.
Since the establishment of the Fox News bureau in 1996, five major Sunday morning talk shows have been generally recognized in media coverage of the format:
While these are the "Big Five" that are universally included in the definition, not all of these programs air in every market, and there are some other shows that are occasionally included in this category. Two relatively recent Sunday morning talk shows broadcast in the Spanish language:
Program
Host
Network
Debut
Al Punto
Jorge Ramos
Univision
2007
Enfoque con Jose Díaz-Balart
Jose Diaz-Balart
Telemundo
2010
Other English language examples include NBC's syndicatedThe Chris Matthews Show, Bloomberg Television's Political Capital with Al Hunt, the PBS roundtables The McLaughlin Group, and This Is America with Dennis Wholey as well as Washington Week and the now-defunct Inside Washington, C-SPAN's Newsmakers, TV One's Washington Watch, Sinclair Broadcast Group's Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson, Hearst Television's Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, Gray Television's Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren, Fox News Channel's Sunday Morning Futures, and MSNBC's Tim Russert Show among several others. In the United States, prominent guests appearing on these programs include U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, state governors, candidates for President and Vice President, Cabinet secretaries, White House officials, and directors of federal agencies. U.S. military leaders, ambassadors, and religious leaders also appear, as well as prominent journalists and commentators. Members of prominent think tanks such as Brookings, Center for American Progress, AEI, Cato, Hoover, and Heritage also are often invited to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows. C-SPAN Radio provides a commercial-free rebroadcast of all five shows in rapid succession, beginning at 12 noon Eastern. Other radio stations rebroadcast some of the shows with commercials on Sunday afternoons. Many local television stations also produce their own programs that air in this time frame, generally focusing on local or state politics rather than national issues, and may play off the title of the network shows, such as Hartford, Connecticut's WFSB-TV, a CBS affiliate which titles their weekly program dealing with state and local issues Face the State, a title also seen on KTVN in Reno/Carson City, Nevada and WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, all of which serve state capital cities.
The programs are generally aired live or pre-recorded, broadcasting from Washington, D.C., providing easy access to many political leaders. Many individuals appear via satellite or in studio for two or more of the programs on a given Sunday. Since Fox News Sundays debut in 1996, several individuals have appeared on all five programs on the same day. William H. Ginsburg, attorney for Monica Lewinsky's family during the Lewinsky scandal, was the first to perform what would be named in his honor as the "Full Ginsburg." More common is an interviewee appearing on different shows in consecutive weeks; for instance, a Presidential candidate may appear on Meet the Press one week, This Week the next, and Fox News Sunday the week after that.
Australia
Currently, only two Sunday morning political programs exist in Australia. This includes Insiders on the ABC and the upcoming Speers on Sunday on Sky News Live. Former shows include Network Ten's Meet the Press, Nine Network's Sunday, Sky News Live's Sunday Agenda and The Bolt Report. The latter became a nightly primetime show in 2016. The three free-to-air commercial broadcasters air general morning news programsWeekend Sunrise, Weekend Today and Studio 10 which include some political coverage.
Similar practice occurs in the UK, in the form of shows such as The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC and Sunday Live with Adam Boulton on Sky News. However, these shows have a somewhat-broader range, often interviewing figures from the arts, popular entertainment, and sports in addition to political leaders, similar in format to CBS News Sunday Morning in the United States. The first such Sunday show in Britain was Weekend World, which was produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network from 1972 to 1988.
There are several political Sunday morning talk shows in Japan, most are often broadcast live from studios in Tokyo, Jiji Hōdan is usually prerecorded on Friday evening. Nichiyō Tōron by public broadcasterNHK often features one politician from every party represented in the National Diet, in many cases the parties' Diet Affairs Council Chairmen. The latter was generally the case with Kokkai Tōronkai, one of several alternating NHK talk shows about political and economic issues sharing the same Sunday morning programming slot before they were replaced by Nichiyō Tōron in 1994. It had initially been a NHK radio talk show and was simultaneously broadcast on television starting in the 1950s.
