Osgood was a broadcaster who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news, and he worked radio and television with equal facility.
NEW YORK — Charles Osgood, the veteran CBS commentator and longtime host of “Sunday Morning,” has died, the network confirmed Tuesday. He was 91.
Osgood was a broadcaster who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news, and he worked radio and television with equal facility.
He was for more than 50 years a radio host, with his voice anchoring CBS’ “The Osgood File” on radio waves across the country. At the end of each edition, he signed off with the familiar “I’ll see you on the radio” – a phrase he carried over to his TV hosting duties.
In 1994, he transitioned to television as the anchor of CBS Sunday Morning. He retired more than 20 years later in 2016. Osgood was the show’s longest-running host when he handed over the reins to Jane Pauley.
“For years now people — even friends and family — have been asking me why I keep doing this considering my age,” Osgood, then 84, said as he was retiring. “It’s just that it’s been such a joy doing it! Who wouldn’t want to be the one who gets to introduce these terrific storytellers and the producers and writers and others who put this wonderful show together.”
Even after his retirement as a television anchor, Osgood continued to broadcast The Osgood File and contributed stories to CBS News.
Often referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence, according to CBS News, Osgood was a poet and author alongside his career in news writing. Over his career he focused many of his interviews on the arts, speaking with chef Julia Child, sculptor Louise Nevelson and Police frontman Sting among many other artists.
Osgood graduated from Fordham University in New York in 1954 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, but focused much of his extracurricular time at the campus radio station. According to CBS News, he became the station’s chief announcer, and used his on-air time to talk and play piano. The passion would eventually lead him to a career in news that spanned more than 50 years.
In 1967, he took a job as reporter on the CBS-owned New York news radio station. Then, one fateful weekend, he was summoned to fill in at the anchor desk for the TV network’s Saturday newscast. In 1971, he joined the CBS network.
Osgood took over Sunday Morning after the beloved Charles Kuralt retired in 1994. Osgood seemingly had an impossible act to follow, but with his folksy erudition and his slightly bookish, bow-tied style, he immediately clicked with viewers who continued to embrace the program as an unhurried TV magazine.
CBS reported that Osgood died Tuesday at his home in New Jersey and that the cause was dementia, according to his family.
