As CBS prepares to enter the 59th season of 60 Minutes with Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief, network insiders and figures inside and outside the company are bracing for “massive changes.” The stakes are heightened by the show’s current audience pull—its 12 April
The 12 April episode of 60 Minutes. featuring Pope Leo and a story on great white sharks. pulled in 10.1 million total viewers—and it’s been treated inside CBS News as proof the long-running format still hits.. Yet beneath the strong ratings for the current broadcast season. anxiety is spreading ahead of the 59th season. which is set to end the 58th season’s run that finishes on 17 May.
A longtime CBS News insider said to expect “massive changes” after the season ends.. That warning comes alongside a counterpoint from another insider: the network is said to have no plans to blow up the format or change the show’s award-winning mission.. Still. layoffs are widely expected. and one network insider put the mood in stark terms: “People [at 60 Minutes] are afraid and they’re waiting for something monumental to happen here.”
The concerns center on Bari Weiss, a controversial heterodox opinion writer who was installed as editor-in-chief after Skydance Media completed its acquisition of CBS’s parent, Paramount Global, in August 2025. For Weiss, the 59th season is described as the first fully under her purview.
One CBS News staffer, not authorized to comment, said the fear is that Weiss would make changes that could damage the show—“just like she has done with everything else at CBS News.” Another insider offered a caution of their own, saying: “They don’t want to turn it upside down.”
What may be changing is not just leadership—it’s the shape of the cast.. In February. correspondent Anderson Cooper announced he was leaving the show to spend more time with his family and to focus on the nightly show he anchors for CNN.. Then on 30 April, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi suggested that she is likely to be “fired” before next season.. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington after being awarded the Ridenhour prize for courage. Alfonsi criticized “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at the network. without directly naming Weiss.
That omission didn’t calm the controversy around Weiss.. Alfonsi’s remarks came after Weiss caused a firestorm by shelving Alfonsi’s 21 December segment about the Trump administration deporting Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador.. Weiss’s position was that the piece needed to be reworked to better convey the administration’s perspective.
Alfonsi’s public rebuke has been read inside the industry as a direct. personal test of power—and a potential rupture in what CBS News staff once believed was firm editorial independence.. Rome Hartman. a longtime 60 Minutes producer who retired last year. said: “If they don’t renew her. it is in direct retaliation for having the temerity to tell the truth. ” adding that Alfonsi “is nothing like a troublemaker.” Hartman said Alfonsi “goes out and gets these stories and does them and puts herself at considerable risk doing them. and she just did what was right here and she’s paying a terrible price for that.”
A former 60 Minutes correspondent described what could happen to remaining reporters if Alfonsi’s situation escalates.. They said the likely departure could create a chilling effect. telling of a feeling that reporters would no longer know what they could safely suggest: “I just know that if I was there now. I would have a hard time knowing where the dial is. where the wind is blowing. what stories can you even suggest at the risk of alienating the powers that be.” They added that in the past “that was never the case.. Ever.. There wasn’t anything that was out of bounds.” A source close to the network pushed back on the notion that certain stories are off limits.
CBS News did not engage publicly with the specific personnel questions. A CBS News spokesperson declined to comment when asked about potential personnel moves.
Outside the company, concern is also being voiced.. CNN’s chief international anchor. Christiane Amanpour. said last week she was worried about Paramount Skydance’s chief executive. David Ellison (and his father. billionaire Donald Trump pal Larry Ellison). taking over the network.. She pointed to “ideological realignment” of CBS News and “the destruction. potentially. of 60 Minutes.” Amanpour said 60 Minutes had “been doing hard news and cultural news and for decades and decades – top-rated. top money-maker for the network.”
Within CBS, some expect Norah O’Donnell to play a larger role. O’Donnell has served in a rotating correspondent role since giving up her perch as anchor of the CBS Evening News in 2025, and the idea of her returning more prominently to 60 Minutes has gained traction.
O’Donnell’s name is tied to another clash with President Donald Trump.. In a 26 April 60 Minutes interview. O’Donnell read from the manifesto of the man who allegedly attempted a mass shooting at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner the day before.. Trump responded by telling O’Donnell. “I was waiting for you to read that. because I knew you would. ” before saying. “Because you’re horrible people.. Horrible people … You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes.. You’re a disgrace.”
Two longtime correspondents—84-year-old Lesley Stahl and 68-year-old Scott Pelley—are expected to remain with the show.. Even so, Pelley has been targeted by conservatives for critical comments he has made about the Trump administration.. Stahl reportedly lost out to CBS News journalist Major Garrett for an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu. the Israeli prime minister. that aired on last Sunday’s 60 Minutes. though it was not described as unusual for a network correspondent to conduct such an interview and Garrett received favorable reviews for his questioning.
Weiss’s role in that kind of booking process has been clarified.. As with other major newsmaker interviews, Weiss participated in the booking process.. A CBS News spokesperson said: “It’s the editor-in-chief’s job to make decisions about bookings and interviews.” The spokesperson also said: “Major is a world-class journalist and did a tough. fair and news-making interview.”
Even with the leadership shift now effectively locked in, Weiss has not gone public with a plan for how the show will change. Weiss, who came to CBS News in October with no experience in television, has not spoken publicly about her plans for a revamped 60 Minutes and has not granted interviews.
Still, her intentions have surfaced in a different setting.. During an employee town hall meeting in late January, Weiss discussed her desire to “expand” the 60 Minutes brand.. She called it “one of the most important. valuable brands. not just to CBS News but to journalism in America. ” and said: “I think it should be at the heart and center of what we do … The idea that that should just be something people are encountering for an hour on a Sunday night doesn’t make sense to me. especially when there’s so much love and devotion and trust in that brand.”
The network is expected to look for opportunities to expand the brand’s reach and to embrace new platforms and formats.. Past attempts at expanding the brand were described as short-lived. including a weeknight spinoff called 60 Minutes II and another called 60 Minutes Sports that ran on Showtime for only a few years.
During the same town hall. Weiss said she would be “across” 60 Minutes’ editorial process but would not be micromanaging it. leaving that to the executive producer. Tanya Simon—described as the daughter of the legendary 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon—and the executive editor. Draggan Mihailovich.. Weiss said: “I have no interest in disrupting a productive culture that exists in a show or a department in this company.”
Even so, internal questions remain about how much influence Simon has with Weiss more heavily involved.. Alfonsi, in remarks on 30 April, suggested Weiss had indeed meddled.. Alfonsi recounted her unwillingness to change a segment that had already been screened and vetted. saying: “My stance did not make my new bosses very happy.”
The 58th season has already been shaped by upheaval at the top.. It began with a major change after Bill Owens. the longtime executive producer and the third in the show’s history. opted to resign in protest of what he said was corporate cowardice and meddling.. On 30 April. Owens said: “Our owners were working to censor 60 Minutes. attempting to stop us from covering the difficult stories we had always brought to you. ” after also receiving a Ridenhour prize for courage.. Upon taking over the show in 2019. Owens said his primary goal was to not “harm a hair on the head of this broadcast”.
Some people close to the program insist the journalism so far has stayed intact despite all the public friction.. Hartman said: “Just as a viewer. I think 60 Minutes has been 60 Minutes this season. ” adding that it’s been “a strong mix of hard stories and feature stories. which I think is what it has always aspired to be. ” and that “Tanya and the correspondents deserve a lot of credit for that.” He then added: “I am extremely worried that that will change.”
One historian of broadcast media expressed hesitation about speaking too confidently about what comes next.. Michael J Socolow. a media historian at the University of Maine whose father was a prominent executive at CBS News. said he was hesitant to comment on 60 Minutes’ future because he previously expressed certainty that the show would be largely left untouched. an assertion that now seems inaccurate.. Even so. Socolow said he had confidence in the show’s senior leadership. especially Simon. though her role as executive producer was reportedly only contractually guaranteed for one year.
Socolow also pointed to the show’s history of surviving major controversies.. He mentioned the 2013 suspension of Lara Logan for a discredited report on the 2012 Benghazi consulate attack.. He also referenced the mishandling of an interview in the 1990s with tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand. and tied it to Alfonsi’s claim that Weiss pulling her El Salvadoran prison segment “nearly [destroyed] the credibility of this broadcast.”
The pattern on display inside the reporting is that each shift in leadership and editorial dispute has arrived alongside public-facing claims about fear. meddling. and what stays “at the heart and center” of the brand.. Weiss’s town hall language about preserving a “productive culture. ” Alfonsi’s description of “corporate meddling and editorial fear. ” Owens’s resignation over alleged censorship attempts. and the insiders’ expectation of “massive changes” all point back to the same question: who steers the line when a segment already gets vetted and then faces new pressure.
Even with a 12 April episode drawing 10.1 million viewers and the show being described as the most-watched news program for the current broadcast season. the countdown toward 17 May is now being framed less as a normal seasonal reset and more as a potential reckoning.. If Weiss’s first fully under-her-purview 59th season matches the anxieties voiced by employees. correspondents could see a different kind of “broadcast” ahead—one defined as much by newsroom boundaries as by the stories that make it to air.
60 Minutes Bari Weiss CBS News Anderson Cooper Sharyn Alfonsi Tanya Simon Draggan Mihailovich Norah O'Donnell Lesley Stahl Scott Pelley editorial control