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The first edition of the remade “60 Minutes” under CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss debuts Sept. 13 with a reliable formula from the venerable newsmagazine’s playbook.
Correspondent Jon Wertheim will lead off the 59th season with an in-depth look at the Los Angeles Rams, the favorite of oddsmakers to win the Super Bowl this season. Wertheim sits down with Rams general manager Les Snead, head coach Sean McVay and veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford. The segment will also explore team owner Stan Kroenke’s investment in technology, including artificial intelligence, to help the team gain an edge on the field.
“60 Minutes” has often turned to sports-related segments when a season premiere follows a late afternoon NFL game. Last year, Wertheim profiled Ultimate Fighting Championship Chief Executive Dana White for the 58th season premiere. The program scored more than 10 million viewers and was the most-watched non-sports program of the week. In 2023, Wertheim interviewed University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders for the 56th season opener.
CBS News will be under pressure to have “60 Minutes” get off to a strong start in the ratings following the major upheaval at the program earlier this year.
After the completion of a successful season where ratings were up 9% over the previous year, Weiss fired “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega — both of whom complained that the executive pushed them to add right-wing talking points to their stories. Weiss also dismissed “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Nick Bilton, who has no previous experience in TV news.
In response to the firings, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” the program and claimed she was putting “her thumb on the scale” for more favorable coverage of President Trump’s administration. Pelley was shown the door with cause after confronting management at a June 1 meeting. CBS denied the claims.
The discord meant the program spent much of the summer hiring replacement correspondents, including Ross Douthat, a conservative New York Times opinion writer with no experience as a TV journalist.
Weiss, founder of the heterodox digital news site the Free Press, was hired by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison with a mandate to pull the news division to the political center. The stated goal has put every move by Weiss under heavy scrutiny, as many critics have suggested she is at the network to placate the Trump White House while Paramount pursues its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Other new “60 Minutes” contributors include author and journalist Sebastian Junger, former CNN and Vice News correspondent Gianna Toboni, and Trevor Phillips, a British journalist who joined CBS News earlier this year as a senior global affairs correspondent. They will join correspondents Wertheim, Norah O’Donnell, Bill Whitaker and Lesley Stahl.
O’Donnell rejoins Gayle King and Nate Burleson at the table of the struggling morning program.
The program will also feature stories with CBS News correspondents outside of the core group at “60 Minutes,” such as Seth Doane and Matt Gutman.
The other two segments on the “60 Minutes” premiere, — which could include a significant newsmaker interview, — will be announced sometime next week.
This year’s premiere should get a strong boost, as most of the country will get CBS coverage of a late afternoon match-up between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, two contenders in the highly competitive NFC North. The network’s pregame show “The NFL Today” is traveling to Green Bay for the telecast.
