"Face the Nation" to continue as hour-long show

(CBS News) A little local news if I may:

"Face the Nation" is the second-oldest program on television. It began in 1954, 58 years ago.

I've been here at the table for the last 21, and last April we began a new chapter - we expanded from a half-hour to an hour.

It was an experiment frankly, and this week the CBS Network notified our affiliate stations that the experiment was successful.

From here on, "Face the Nation" will be a one-hour broadcast.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank our affiliate stations who found a way this year to include the one hour broadcast on their schedules on very short notice, and most of all I want to thank those of you who watch our broadcast.

Your numbers, I'm happy to say, continue to grow and I really appreciate it.

And by the way, we don't intend to change much. No bells and whistles here. We'll just turn on the lights, sit the key news makers down and ask them the questions we think you would ask.

And if they don't answer, we'll try to point that out.