‘60 Minutes’ Was One Part Of CBS News That Still Worked. Bari Weiss Gutted It Anyway.

‘60 Minutes’ wasn’t broken. They decided to ‘fix it’ anyway.

While the president may have wished for an end to 60 Minutes–just as he did for CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert–there’s little debate about who wielded the axe at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York Thursday: recently-appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss, who said in a memo co-signed by CBS News President Tom Cibrowski that “building a show that thrives in the 21st century” meant taking “a new approach” with 60 Minutes.

A “new approach” sounds reasonable at CBS News, which has no shortage of franchises that look like they might not thrive in the 21st century. The CBS Evening News has endured a series of anchor and format changes without making any meaningful progress in catching up to its rivals, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News. Despite some small year-over-year gains, the CBS broadcast trails World News by more than 4.3 million viewers–the largest gap in three decades.

In the battle for morning TV viewers, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today continue their long two-show ratings race, with CBS Mornings languishing in third place, trailing the leaders by more than a million viewers.

But 60 Minutes? The iconic newsmagazine has done more heavy lifting than any other part of CBS News to keep memories of the network’s years as the gold standard of broadcast journalism–and all without revamping its style or substance. No flash, no gimmicks, just solid journalism that draws a huge audience. In May, 60 Minutes ended its 58th season with an average total audience of 9.1 million viewers–up 9% from one year ago, and marking a staggering 52 consecutive years as the country’s most-watched news program.

The newsmagazine was also profitable, taking in $206 million in advertising in 2024, according to Guideline, which tracks spending by national advertisers–many of whom paid top dollar to reach the affluent and influential viewers of 60 Minutes each Sunday night.

To the casual observer–and to many TV news insiders, as well–it seemed 60 Minutes would fit neatly into the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fit-it category as Weiss set about doing what she was hired to do, to “invigorate CBS News,” as David Ellison, the CEO of CBS parent Paramount Skydance, said when he hired Weiss last fall. “We believe the majority of the country longs for news that is balanced and fact-based, and we want CBS to be their home.”

That promise came not long after 60 Minutes aired an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, angering Donald Trump, who accused CBS–without any evidence–of editing the piece in a way to make Harris look good.

In a move many saw as an effort to please Trump, CBS negotiated a $16 million settlement over the Harris interview, leading to Bill Owens resignation as executive producer of 60 Minutes. He said at the time he was no longer able to “make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 minutes, right for the audience.”

What’s right for ‘60 Minutes’ now?

It’s hard to imagine what a man like 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt would have thought of what happened this week at CBS News. One of the show’s special powers was consistency: the same faces introducing stories in front of a mock magazine-spread background, the same ticking stopwatch. Now, it’s unclear who’s left and what the show might look like going forward.

Weiss fired Tanya Simon, the show’s executive producer and a 30-year veteran of 60 Minutes. To replace Simon, Weiss has hired Nick Bilton, a former New York Times technology columnist and documentary filmmaker with no previous experience in broadcast news.

In an interview with the Times, Bilton called the drama surrounding 60 Minutes–the Trump settlement, a recent story pulled at the last minute, and now the firings–as “just noise” and promised that the change at one of television’s most successful programs would be “quite frankly phenomenal.”

What might that look like? “I’m not saying that we’re going to change the show completely and drastically,” Bilton said. “I’m saying that there are all these approaches and ideas that we can do that I couldn’t be more excited to jump into.” He suggested that changes might include bringing in new voices from outside traditional broadcast news.

Who those voices might be will determine how much 60 Minutes still feels like 60 Minutes. Forcing a Trump-friendly voice into the show–imagine someone like Tucker Carlson sitting there on a Sunday night–could alter the show’s DNA in such a way that the decades-long consistency of the show is broken. In TV news, suddenly changing the formula–remember New Coke?–can be a highly risky move.