"CBS SUNDAY MORNING" UNVEILS OTHER SURPRISING FINDINGS AS PART OF ITS 30th ANNIVERSARY BROADCAST THIS WEEKEND

  

A recent CBS News/New York Times poll found that 61% of Americans feel people's lives will be better in the future, as opposed to 46% of Americans in 1979. The poll, conducted as part of CBS SUNDAY MORNING's 30th anniversary, compared how Americans' perspectives on key issues have evolved since the broadcast's debut in 1979. Anchored by Charles Osgood, SUNDAY MORNING celebrates the milestone this weekend and reveals some surprises about what has and, more interestingly, what hasn't changed in our views about pop culture, social values, politics and technology over the last three decades.  

 

            Among the shifts in public opinion was that on homosexual relations. A 1978 Gallup Poll found that 62% of Americans thought homosexual relations between consenting adults were wrong. Today, according to the CBS News/New York Times poll, most Americans (54%) think homosexual relations between adults are not wrong.

 

Meanwhile, women still think there are more advantages to being a man than a woman, which is similar to their views thirty years ago. However, men's views on this subject have changed. In 1979, 44% of men thought there was more of an advantage to being a man, while 45% thought it didn't matter. Today, 32% of men feel they have an advantage, while 58% believe a person's sex doesn't matter.

 

            More Americans are also relying on televisions as their primary news source - 60% of people today as opposed to 41% thirty years ago. And there has been a significant shift in people's reliance on newspapers. Today only 14% of Americans rely on them, while that number was 41% in 1979.

 

           SUNDAY MORNING's 30th anniversary broadcast this Sunday, Feb.1 (9:00-10:30 AM, EST) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

 

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Press Contact:        Louise Bashi            212.975.2856             bashil@cbsnews.com