CBS News' flagship newsmagazine 60 Minutes is enduring a turbulent stretch, with audience figures sliding since the current season began and internal discord spilling into public view. The turbulence is drawing attention well beyond one newsroom, given the program's long-standing role as a benchmark for broadcast newsmagazines and a dependable draw in the competitive Sunday primetime lineup.

According to a post on X by Brian Steinberg, early ratings data showed that Sunday's telecast drew roughly 5.7 million viewers, a season low that has prompted concern inside the network. "Early ratings reports put audience for this past Sunday's telecast of 60 Minutes at about 5.7M, a low for the current season that has sparked chatter internally at CBS. Numbers may change w/final report later today, and Fox had an NFL game opposite telecast, but that # is tough," the post from @bristei noted. Early figures of this kind are provisional estimates that broadcasters routinely revise when final numbers are released later the same day.

The ratings news followed a social media misstep the network was forced to walk back. CBS News deleted a post that inaccurately claimed Florida State Rep. Angie Nixon "declined to say" whether Cuba is a dictatorship. In the full interview clip, Nixon explained that she relied on others' accounts because she had not visited the country herself and could not make an informed judgment.

The network has drawn mounting criticism since coming under the leadership of Bari Weiss, whose political leanings have fueled concerns about the direction of its journalism and editorial independence. Critics, including former CBS employees, accuse Weiss of pushing a political agenda, pointing to ties between the network's parent company leaders and the Trump administration. The stakes are amplified by the sheer reach of a network news division whose editorial decisions shape what millions of viewers see each evening.

60 Minutes, a ratings powerhouse for decades, has taken a visible hit. An episode that aired earlier this month, featuring an interview with Secret Service director Sean M. Curry, delivered mediocre viewership by the program's standards: 6.061 million total viewers, including 767,000 in the key 25-54 age demographic, the segment most closely tracked by news advertisers.

Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, who has reported for the program since 1991, has reportedly weighed leaving the show as other staffers grow frustrated with behind-the-scenes politics.

Weiss also came under fire this month after leaked audio from a CBS News meeting exposed severe editorial clashes within the leadership team. After Oliver Darcy reported on disputes over CBS's Middle East coverage, foreign editor Shayndi Raice, chosen by Weiss, held a tense 15-minute virtual meeting with staff. The audio captured Raice describing challenges to editorial decisions as "insubordination" and warning that they could be grounds for firing.

Former 60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley accused Weiss of "murdering" the program during a heated staff meeting. He was later fired, though he secured a major deal, forfeiting his severance and other benefits effective immediately. In a termination note, executive producer Nick Bilton criticized Pelley's "performative display of hostility," accusing him of hijacking Bilton's first staff meeting to attack his "qualifications and intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt," according to USA Today.

Attention now turns to whether the final ratings report confirms the season-low figure, whether Stahl remains with the program, and whether the leadership tensions continue to spill into public view.

Source: Alternet