An overhauled ‘60 Minutes’ sheds viewers in season premiere

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Paramount’s overhaul of “60 Minutes,” and all the outrage that followed, did not spur many new viewers to check out the season premiere.

About 7.94 million viewers tuned in for Sunday night’s season premiere, down from 10.03 million for the 2025 premiere, a major year-over-year drop.

There are numerous reasons for the decline. Chiefly, ratings for the NFL match-up that preceded “60 Minutes” also declined about 20 percent year-over-year.

But the results are still discouraging for CBS News, which suffered serious brand damage by firing several top “60 Minutes” producers and correspondents last May and June.

Since then, “60” has been in rebuilding mode, and the newsmagazine put out a strong episode on Sunday night. But last spring’s changes — led by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss — may have alienated a greater number of viewers than they attracted.

And the broader ratings environment is unforgiving, as every TV executive can attest. Nielsen recently changed its methodology, which has lowered TV ratings for many channels.

That didn’t stop the schadenfreude and score-settling on Tuesday, as some Weiss critics pronounced her “60” reboot a failure while others called that unrealistic and unfair.

Anticipating a heap of negative headlines, CBS News issued a statement that read, “We are so proud of the exceptional journalism on display in our season premiere and we can’t wait to bring our audience another amazing show this coming Sunday.”

The news division also emphasized the reach of “60 Minutes” content across YouTube and other social media platforms — something CBS News has been touting for years.

The difference, this year, is that the new owners of Paramount — who are now seeking to buy CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery — have shaken up “60 Minutes” in dramatic fashion.

In late May, CBS ousted correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega along with several of the show’s top producers, including executive producer Tanya Simon. Weiss tapped Nick Bilton, a New York Times alum and documentary producer with little broadcast news experience, to replace Simon.

The following week, Scott Pelley confronted Weiss and Bilton at a staff meeting and accused Weiss of “murdering” the newsmagazine. A day later, CBS fired Pelley , who also accused the new management of forcing him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” — a charge the network denied.

Days of bad press ensued, and some longtime fans said they would shun the show because of the politically charged overhaul.

Weiss and Bilton vowed to modernize the newsmagazine and went on to hire several new correspondents and contributors .

CBS also rolled out a marketing campaign to draw attention to the new season . But the pushback has continued: Over the weekend, an activist group even staged a protest outside CBS News headquarters with a digital sign that showed Paramount CEO David Ellison’s face with the words “David Ellison is murdering 60 Minutes.”

Despite the personnel changes and a few technical tweaks, Sunday’s episode largely resembled the “60 Minutes” that viewers have known for years — scrutiny of President Donald Trump included.

But the off-air controversies are proving hard to overcome.

Television is all about lead-ins, and for the first five months of the season, “60 Minutes” has one of the best lead-ins of all: professional football.

CBS televised the Packers–Vikings game on Sunday afternoon, which averaged about 18.6 million viewers. The equivalent game last year averaged 23.7 million.

The drop is partly due to Nielsen’s methodology changes, including a revised estimate of the total audience that’s available to watch TV in the US. Last month the NFL spoke out publicly against what it called “rushed” changes to the methodology.

What the NFL giveth, the NFL can also taketh away, and some CBS viewers probably switched over to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” which kicked off while “60 Minutes” was still on.

Regardless, “60 Minutes” has the kind of lead-in that other news programs would (and do) envy.

And such a highly publicized revamp could have, in theory, attracted lots of newly curious eyeballs.

Instead, “60” slipped below the 10-million-viewer mark on premiere night for the first time since 2020.

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派拉蒙对《60分钟》的改版以及随之而来的所有争议，并没有吸引很多新观众观看新一季的首播。

周日晚间，约有 794 万观众收看了新一季的首播，低于 2025 年首播时的 1003 万观众，同比大幅下降。

收视率下滑的原因有很多。最主要的是，在《60分钟》节目之前播出的NFL比赛的收视率也同比下降了约20%。

但对于哥伦比亚广播公司新闻部来说，结果仍然令人沮丧。去年五月和六月，哥伦比亚广播公司新闻部解雇了几位《60分钟》节目的顶级制片人和记者，导致其品牌形象严重受损。

此后，《60》节目一直在进行改版，并在周日晚播出了一期精彩的节目。但去年春天由哥伦比亚广播公司新闻总编辑巴里·韦斯主导的改革，或许疏远的观众比吸引的观众更多。

而整体收视率环境也十分残酷，这一点每位电视高管都能体会到。尼尔森公司最近更改了收视率调查方法，导致许多频道的收视率下降。

但这并没有阻止周二的幸灾乐祸和清算旧账，一些魏斯的批评者宣称她的《60》重启版是一次失败，而另一些人则称这种说法不切实际且不公平。

预料到会有大量负面新闻报道，CBS新闻发表声明称：“我们为本季首播中展现的卓越新闻报道感到非常自豪，我们迫不及待地想在本周日为观众带来另一场精彩的节目。”

新闻部门还强调了《60 分钟》节目内容在 YouTube 和其他社交媒体平台上的影响力——这是 CBS 新闻多年来一直大力宣传的。

今年的不同之处在于，派拉蒙的新东家——他们现在正寻求收购 CNN 的母公司华纳兄弟探索频道——对《60 分钟》节目进行了戏剧性的改革。

5月下旬，CBS解雇了记者莎伦·阿尔方西和塞西莉亚·维加，以及包括执行制片人坦尼娅·西蒙在内的几位节目高级制片人。韦斯任命尼克·比尔顿接替西蒙的职位，比尔顿曾任职于《纽约时报》，是一位纪录片制片人，但几乎没有广播新闻经验。

接下来的一周，斯科特·佩利在一次员工会议上当面质问韦斯和比尔顿，并指责韦斯“毁了”这档新闻杂志节目。一天后，哥伦比亚广播公司解雇了佩利，佩利还指责新管理层强迫他“在一篇政治敏感报道中掺杂谎言和偏见”——哥伦比亚广播公司否认了这一指控。

随后几天负面新闻铺天盖地而来，一些老粉丝表示，由于这次政治色彩浓厚的改版，他们将不再观看该节目。

韦斯和比尔顿决心对新闻杂志进行现代化改造，并聘请了几位新的记者和撰稿人。

CBS也推出了一项营销活动来吸引人们对新一季的关注。但反对声浪仍在继续：上周末，一个维权组织甚至在CBS新闻总部外举行抗议活动，他们举着一块电子标语牌，上面显示着派拉蒙首席执行官大卫·埃里森的脸，并写着“大卫·埃里森正在扼杀《60分钟》”。

尽管人员有所变动，技术上也进行了一些调整，但周日播出的这期节目与观众多年来熟悉的《60分钟》节目大体上相似——其中也包括对唐纳德·特朗普总统的审视。

但节目之外的争议却难以克服。

电视节目讲究的是前导节目，而对于赛季的前五个月来说，《60 分钟》节目拥有最好的前导节目之一：职业橄榄球赛。

哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）周日下午直播了包装工队对阵维京人队的比赛，平均收视人数约为1860万。去年同期比赛的平均收视人数为2370万。

收视率下降的部分原因是尼尔森公司调整了收视率调查方法，包括修订了对美国电视观众总数的估算。上个月，NFL公开反对这种“仓促”的调查方法调整。

NFL 给予的，NFL 也可以收回。一些 CBS 的观众可能转而观看 NBC 的“周日晚间橄榄球赛”，该节目在“60 分钟”节目仍在播出时开赛。

无论如何，《60分钟》的开场白是其他新闻节目会（也确实）羡慕的。

理论上讲，这样一次备受瞩目的改造可能会吸引很多新晋的关注者。

然而，《60》首播当晚的收视人数却跌破了 1000 万大关，这是自 2020 年以来的首次。