Topline
CBS News boss Bari Weiss is facing increasing criticism for her firing of veteran executives and longtime correspondents at “60 Minutes,” with one now-fired correspondent accusing her of “killing” the show that has been the country’s No. 1 news program for more than five decades, according to Nielsen data.
“60 Minutes” Correspondent Lesley Stahl interviews then-President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family in 2016.
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Timeline
The first episode of “60 Minutes,” hosted by Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner, aired on Sept. 24, 1968 and included journalist Andy Rooney in one of his earliest television appearances, an interview with then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark discussing the topic of police brutality, and an abbreviated version of the Oscar-winning short film “Why Man Creates.”
In the 1979-80 TV season, Nielsen named “60 Minutes” the No. 1 highest-rated television show for the first time, estimating nearly a third of American households tuned in each Sunday and it topped legendary programs like “Dallas,” “Three’s Company” and “M*A*S*H.”
The show was only named No. 1 for one season in the 1980s but was ranked among Nielsen’s top 10 every year for the entire decade—regularly beating out shows like “Dallas,” “Magnum P.I.” and “Dynasty”—building what would become the longest top-10 streak in television history.
“60 Minutes” was the No. 1-ranked show for three consecutive seasons starting in 1991 and was more watched than “Roseanne” and “Cheers” at the height of their popularity.
The cable news revolution delivered a blow to most broadcast news programs in the 2000s and while “60 Minutes” didn’t take the No. 1 title in any season that decade, its 2008 interview with then-President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle drew 25.1 million viewers to make it the most watched “60 Minutes” episode since Niselen data started to include viewership figures per episode.
“60 Minutes” celebrated its 50th season in 2017—an achievement matched only by “Saturday Night Live” on NBC—and, by the time it reached the milestone, had won 20 Peabody awards, 12 du Pont awards and a record 138 Emmys.
Correspondent Anderson Cooper interviewed Stormy Daniels about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump and the broadcast drew 22.1 million viewers to be the most-watched “60 Minutes” episode since Obama’s and one of the largest news-program audiences of the decade.
The 2025-26 season of “60 Minutes” reached an average weekly audience of 9.1 million viewers, a 9% increase year-over-year, and more than one-third of Americans were reached at least once during the 2025-26 season across linear television and streaming platforms.
“60 Minutes” surpassed 2.5 billion digital views across social media platforms in the 2025-26 season.
Big Number
52. That’s how many consecutive years “60 Minutes” has been the top-rated news program in America.
News Peg
Weiss fired “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, senior producer Matthew Polevoy, producer Guy Campanile and Vega and Alfonsi last month with a purported goal of “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.” On Monday, a staff meeting with new executive producer Nick Bilton reportedly turned explosive when longtime correspondent Scott Pelley railed against Weiss, claiming, “She was brought in to kill (CBS News), and she’s been doing exactly that.” Pelley was fired the next day and a public back-and-forth with Weiss ensued, in which Pelley alleged she’d told him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”
Scott Pelley reports for first time on evidence of U.S. adversary who may be behind mysterious neurological symptoms known as Havana Syndrome
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Crucial Quote
“She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job,” Pelley reportedly said to Bilton. “The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
Key Background
Before she was installed at CBS News, Weiss ran right-leaning media company The Free Press. She was given the job at CBS last year after David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump supporter Larry Ellison, purchased the network’s parent, Paramount, through his company Skydance Media. He bought The Free Press for $150 million shortly after. To get the Skydance merger approved, Paramount made several moves to placate the Trump administration including killing all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and hiring a bias ombudsman for CBS News. The Ellisons have said they want to rebuild trust in news by emphasizing reporting that is “balanced and fact-based,” but critics have pointed to Weiss’ lack of experience and an editorial bent focused on critiquing the political left, attacking “wokeness” and promoting a pro-Israel agenda. Weiss has made several headline-grabbing news since taking the help, including hosting a bizarre town hall with Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, and installing Tony Dokoupil as the sole anchor of “CBS Evening News.”
Then-Prince Charles, right, talks to “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft in 2005 in his first American television interview since 1989.
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Tangent
“60 Minutes” has produced some of television’s most powerful investigative pieces of journalism. President Bill Clinton used the show to effectively admit to adultery; a young black man named Lenell Geter was released from prison in the 1980s after “60 Minutes” proved he was innocent; and the show broke the story of prisoner abuse at the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib Prison in 2004, which became one of the defining journalism moments of the Iraq War. The show has broadcast interviews with Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who was guarding President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated; former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Vladimir Putin; President Richard Nixon post Watergate; then-Price Charles and Boris Yeltsin, who was still a rising Soviet politician when he sat down with “60 Minutes.”