The Clock May Be Ticking on 60 Minutes as We Know It
As Bari Weiss seeks to reimagine CBS News, staffers are preparing for the network’s flagship program 60 Minutes, arguably the most influential news program in all of TV, to be “revolutionized” along with it. When Weiss first joined CBS News last year, 60 Minutes was hardly seen as a focal point. The network’s evening newscast…
As Bari Weiss seeks to reimagine CBS News, staffers are preparing for the network’s flagship program 60 Minutes, arguably the most influential news program in all of TV, to be “revolutionized” along with it.
When Weiss first joined CBS News last year, 60 Minutes was hardly seen as a focal point. The network’s evening newscast the CBS Evening News and morning show CBS Mornings have been stuck in third place behind NBC and ABC for years, and early indications were that those were top priorities.
CBS’ Sunday newsmagazines, the lighter CBS News Sunday Morning, anchored by Jane Pauley, and the legendarily hard-hitting 60 Minutes led their respective time periods (60, in fact, has been the most watched TV news program for years).
But the past few months have seen a flurry of events that portend a very different 60 Minutes in the not-too-distant future. Meanwhile, network-wide layoff plans in the next several months will reshape CBS News as Weiss puts her imprint on new areas of focus and adds to the mix her own contributor hires.
Earlier this month, Anderson Cooper announced his plan to exit as a correspondent for the newsmagazine after nearly 20 years, and after weeks of negotiations to remain on the show, citing a desire to spend more time with his kids (while keeping his perch at CNN).
“We’re grateful to him for dedicating so much of his life to this broadcast, and understand the importance of spending more time with family.60 Minuteswill be here if he ever wants to return,” CBS said at the time.
On Sunday’s show, a segment anchored by Cooper about white South African refugees aired, after what had reportedly been an extended and unusual editing and vetting process.
And Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent whose report “Inside CECOT” sparked something akin to an internal revolt at the program after Weiss ordered it be pulled ahead of its release pending further reporting, is set to see her contract expire in the next few months. CBS staff are bracing for her potential exit, and wondering what other correspondents could be next (one insider noted that Lesley Stahl is 84 and Bill Whitaker is 74, while Scott Pelley has expressed frustration with Weiss in staff meetings).
“In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” Alfonsi wrote at the time in a memo to her fellow correspondents, including Cooper.
60 Minutes has always been something of an outlier among TV news programs. At a moment when shows are leaning into their talent (see Weiss’ effort to overhaul the Evening News around Tony Dokoupil), it has a large roster of correspondents rather than a singular face of the show. Instead, the format and high production values are the real star.
And while most news shows are fighting for audience share, it benefits from CBS’ NFL lead-in for much of the year to secure its significant ratings (the show’s Feb. 15 episode drew 6 million viewers, marking the top non-Olympics series in broadcast in primetime). But the departure of a correspondent, or even multiple correspondents, is unlikely to change its ratings equation.
CBS News leaders Tom Cibrowski and Bari Weiss.
Photo credit: Michele Crowe/CBS
And in a move that may seem immaterial to outside observers, 60 Minutes will in the coming weeks move from its historic base on West 57th across the street to the CBS Broadcast Center in Midtown Manhattan, joining the rest of the CBS News programming. CBS Sports and Inside Edition will be moving, too (they are going to Paramount’s Broadway office), but moving 60 Minutes into the larger CBS News space is nonetheless a shift for the show.
While office consolidations in media are a common occurrence (even at CBS), 57th Street served as a metaphorical and literal buffer on the influence that CBS had on the newsmagazine, which has long operated with a high degree of independence.
Of course, that independence has already been slowly deteriorating over the past year.
President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over how 60 Minutes edited its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris angered staff at the news division, given how frivolous they viewed the accusations to be, and the decision by CBS (then owned by Shari Redstone) to settle.
Amid that suit, the show’s longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigned, telling staff it was over issues of editorial independence, and that network executives were getting involved in stories that in a way that they had not done previously.
“Over the past months, it has … become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Owens wrote at the time. “To make independent decisions based on what was right for60 Minutes, right for the audience. So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward.”
Tanya Simon
Michele Crowe/CBS News via Getty Images
A few months later, staffers at the show breathed a sigh of relief when Tanya Simon was named Owens’ successor. A 25-year veteran of the show (and daughter of the legendary correspondent Bob Simon), her pick reassured staff that despite the tumult of the settlement and the exit of Owens, the show would have some stability as it charted a path forward.
And then Skydance acquired Paramount, and David Ellison brought in Weiss, promising to reinvent the news division at a moment when polarization was high, and trust in media was low.
Simon, sources say, has been cognizant of the changed internal politics, but wants to maintain 60 Minutes‘ place and influence at CBS and in the TV business.
Speaking at USC Annenberg’s Walter Cronkite Awards in December (notably before the Inside CECOT fiasco), Pelley was sanguine about the situation, even as he acknowledged that it was a “fraught time” for the show. “Our company is the new Paramount, and we were all very concerned at 60 Minutes about what that meant,” he said.
Weiss, for her part, has not been shy about her desire to overhaul CBS.
Last month, Weiss gathered the rank and file of CBS News in the network’s Broadcast Center on West 57th Street in New York, outlining her vision for the network, and 60 Minutes was on the agenda.
“This building holds a deep history of radical innovation. CBS aired the first presidential debate back in 1960. It put out the first television newsmagazine, 60 Minutes, in 1968,” Weiss told staff. “We are proud of that history. We talk a lot about it. The real question now is how we can revolutionize it in our own time.
“We should devote vastly more of our attention — starting right now — to what’s coming,” she added. “That means investing in our extraordinary brands like 60 Minutes, 48 Hours and Sunday Morning by building them out — creating podcasts, newsletters, live journalism events and more.”
Of course, no one at 60 Minutes expects the changes to be limited to a podcast, or a live event extension of the show. If Weiss does find herself in a position to add multiple correspondents to the program, who she selects and the stories they pursue will surely send a message about her overarching vision for CBS, from its most popular show to every corner of the news division.
