When Nick Belton first met Barry Weiss about the opportunity to take over 60 minutesthe most watched and most popular television news magazine in America, #1 Vanity gallery and New York Times The journalist had already put his reporting days behind him in favor of screenwriting.
“Honestly, I had no desire to go back to journalism,” Belton says. Hollywood Reporter. “I felt that being able to tell stories on screen was the future of my next era in storytelling.”
But the opportunity bothered him.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I was working through all these scenarios, and all I could think about was him 60 minutesHe added, noting that he had come up with a “vision” for the news brand.
On May 28, Vice made its move, announcing a major overhaul of the venerable news magazine. The show’s executive producer, Tanya Simon, and a few of her top deputies exited. Reporters Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega also appeared outside.
Bilton has been announced as the show’s new EP. Inside halls 60The news “hit like a ton of bricks,” an insider recalls.
To be sure, the overhaul has been expected for months. Even Simone’s exit wasn’t entirely surprising. But when the expected assumption turns into reality, it is still painful. And for some veterans of the show, it felt like the end of an era.
Weiss, who was named editor-in-chief of CBS News last fall, and Pelton share a desire to wean CBS away from its reliance on television, which remains its primary means of viewership and revenue.
Pelton, 49, has been coy about many of the planned changes (he plans to meet with staff at the show and meet again in a month or so to lay out his full vision), but the basic premise appears to be built on expansion. 60 minutes To the places where consumers get their news first.
While viewers over 50 continue to turn on their TVs, people under 50 largely do not.
Or as Tom Cebrowski, president of Vice and CBS News, explained in a memo 60 minutes Staff outlines the changes: “The reality facing journalism in 2026 is not easy. Information is fragmented. Algorithms reward anger. AI-generated misinformation is spreading. Audiences are overwhelmed.”
“Once a week for one hour, one evening, you have this amazing show, which is usually three little, short documentaries, and to me, it’s crazy that it ends there,” Pelton says. I think there’s an opportunity to bring it to a lot of different platforms and to bring it to a lot of different people across those platforms by expanding the way we tell stories, and that’s still the case. 60 minutes …Linear television is very much an audience that comes to find you, and I think there’s an opportunity to go and find an audience in many different media.
If you take a little look you can see where it’s going. 60 minutes Reporters can lead short clips that play first on TikTok, YouTube, or Reels, before finding their way to Pluto, Paramount+, and, yes, CBS.
As it happens 60 minutesWe’ve already tried this once before: the program spawned a show called 60 by 6 for the ill-fated Quibi service. After Quibi closed for just six months, the show was rebranded as 60 minutes+ And he moved to Paramount+.
CBS executives were said to have been pleased with the show, which had its own roster of correspondents and covered issues that were seen as more relevant to younger consumers. However, in the end, it was not renewed (although one source says it was very close to being picked up for a second season, and they were “stunned” when that wasn’t the case).
One high-ranking executive puts it bluntly: News shows don’t attract serious viewership or share streaming subscriptions. Although every once in a while a segment or presentation can move the conversation forward.
Additionally, a CBS setup with completely separate correspondents for live broadcast and TV shows made no more sense than having a magazine or newspaper with separate “print” reporters and “digital” reporters.
This is certainly a mistake Pelton did not make. When the show returns, likely with a new slate of correspondents joining some of the current cast members, expect those journalists to lead viewers through the story on TikTok and YouTube as well as on Sunday nights on CBS.
Pelton suggests the series could rely on reporters who focus on beats, rather than generalists, though he stops short of naming names.
“Different reporters and specialists in different fields, and they’re all going to be the best in their field, the best in the field, and they’re great storytellers, and they’re great investigators, and they’re fearless,” he said when asked what he looks for in a reporter.
But Pelton will first need to gain the trust of the news magazine’s remaining staff, reporters and longtime viewers, and do so against a backdrop clouded by politics. 60 minutesAfter all, that was the source of President Trump’s lawsuit, which was settled months before David Ellison closed his deal to acquire CBS parent company Paramount.
Vega issued a fiery statement on Thursday in which she claimed that “in recent months, my production teams and I have faced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have shied away from making news presentations on important news topics for fear of internal repercussions,” she said. “Let’s call this what it is: self-imposed censorship. It’s dangerous for supply and it’s dangerous for democracy.”
A CBS News spokesperson said: “We respect Ms. Vega and her contributions, but her allegations are not based in reality.”
Anderson Cooper made the decision to leave the show earlier this year, meaning the show with Vega and Alphonsi was cut short by three correspondents. Internally, some expect others to follow.
Lesley Stahl is 84 years old and works on one-year contracts. Bill Whitaker is 74, Scott Pelley is 68, and John Wertheim is 55.
In her memo, Vega noted that some remaining reporters had opposed the company’s leadership.
“I know from many conversations with colleagues that many of the production teams and reporters working on the show today have had to struggle to maintain editorial independence on a regular basis,” she said. “I’m far from the only one 60 minutesHer correspondent who asked herself: What is my personal red line? How much can I withdraw before I pay the price?
It’s not immediately clear whether Weiss’ sweeping changes will cross that red line among any of the four remaining reporters.
The fear among some is that 60 minutes Its legality is being delawed and its effectiveness reduced in the name of political expediency. After all, Paramount is trying to get final approvals for a massive $111 billion deal that would merge it with Warner Bros. Discovery… and make CNN and CBS News sisters.
“The wall between editorial independence and corporate interests at CBS is being systematically torn down,” Alfonsi said in a statement after his contract was not renewed. “Journalists who want to challenge authority are being pushed out in favor of those who do not want to challenge authority. If this continues, the result will be broadcast that looks like… 60 minutes But he lacks the courage and character needed to produce important journalism.
However, “holding people accountable” and “investigative journalism” remain core principles, Belton says For the series, though, he and Weiss will need to show, not tell, in order to achieve the changes they hope to achieve.
He also says he wanted to bring “some of that kind of gonzo journalism that I’ve done” to make the show more modern.
One can look at his 2021 HBO documentary Famous fake As a possible template, he took three random evangelicals with modest social media followings and tried to turn them into social media influencers by buying followers and influence.
Or perhaps his series of reports on the use of cell phones on planes, which eventually led to the FAA changing its rules around the practice.
“I think there are a lot of parts 60 “It’s great and it works really well, and I think there are other parts of it that could be brought into the modern era,” Belton says. “This show is still the show, the label is still the label, the name is still the name, the reporters are still the guides, but it has reinvented itself over the years.”
Now, it will face arguably its biggest reinvention yet, with a pair of TV newbies at the helm. Stay tuned.
