New York — 60 Minutes is heading into its next season with the biggest question at CBS News not about ratings, but about who will still be there to make the show. The 58th season ends on 17 May, and the 59th is expected to look very different, with Bari Weiss set to have full control for the first time and layoffs widely expected across the network.
The timing is hard to miss. The 12 April episode of 60 Minutes drew 10.1 million total viewers, keeping the program at the top of the current broadcast season as the most-watched news show. But inside CBS News, the mood is far less celebratory. One longtime network insider said to expect “massive changes” after the season ends, while another said, “People [at 60 Minutes] are afraid and they’re waiting for something monumental to happen here.”
Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief after Skydance Media officially completed its acquisition of CBS’s parent, Paramount Global, in August 2025. That makes the next season of 60 Minutes the first to fall fully under her purview, and employees are already bracing for a shift that could reach beyond the flagship Sunday program. A CBS News staffer said Weiss would make changes that would damage the show, “just like she has done with everything else at CBS News.” Another insider pushed back on the idea of a wholesale overhaul, saying, “They don’t want to turn it upside down.”
The strain around Weiss has sharpened because the conflict is not only about staffing. It is also about editorial judgment. On 21 December, Weiss shelved Sharyn Alfonsi’s segment about the Trump administration deporting Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador, arguing that it needed to be reworked to better convey the administration’s perspective. The episode fed a broader sense among some staff that the new leadership is reaching deeper into the reporting process than they are used to, especially on politically sensitive stories.
Alfonsi made that unease public on 30 April, when she strongly suggested at the National Press Club that she is likely to be fired before next season. She decried “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at the network. Rome Hartman, a former 60 Minutes executive producer, went further, saying, “If they don’t renew her, it is in direct retaliation for having the temerity to tell the truth.” He added, “I’ve worked with Sharon over many years. She knows herself, she stands up for herself, but she is nothing like a troublemaker. She’s a person that 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.”
Anderson Cooper’s decision in February to leave 60 Minutes, saying he wanted more time with his family and to focus on the nightly show he anchors for, only added to the sense that a familiar era is closing. For all the anxiety inside the newsroom, the public-facing strength of the program remains intact. 60 Minutes is still drawing huge audiences, and the network says it has no plan to blow up the format or abandon the show’s award-winning mission. The question is not whether the brand survives. It is how much of the old 60 Minutes will still be standing when the 59th season begins under Bari Weiss.
