CBS’ Julie Chen says she will deliver

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Could this result in a bump in the ratings?

Julie Chen, co-host on the third-place morning news program, CBS’ ‘The Early Show,’ made some news herself this morning by announcing on the air that she is pregnant.

Chen, who has worked on the show for 10 years, is married to CBS Corp. chieftain Leslie Moonves.

‘I am expecting my first child,’ she said, which was immediately followed by cheers and applause from the off-camera crew. ‘It wasn’t a big Sunday at the buffet table,’ she noted, patting her tummy. ‘I’m starting to show now.’

‘My due date is Oct. 4. Fingers crossed,’ she added. Chen said that she was not planning to take maternity leave from the summer prime-time reality show that she also hosts, ‘Big Brother.’ ‘I e-mailed my boss over there this weekend and I said, ‘Don’t worry. I can still do the show,’ she said.

‘You will be the real house mother,’ her co-anchor Harry Smith joked.

The New York Post’s Page Six had the scoop on the ‘more-not-less-of-the-Moonves-family,’ publishing a gossip item about the pregnancy this morning.

Moonves has three adult children from an earlier marriage, which ended in divorce. Moonves and Chen married in late 2004.

-- Meg James

Photo: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press