CBS News head Bari Weiss’s future with the network could hinge on the audience numbers when venerable “60 Minutes” returns to the air.
According to a report from Oliver Darcy at Status, executives at CBS have set a baseline for what they expect when the rebooted newsmagazine, which has seen a mass purge of on-air talent and producers at Weiss’s direction, premieres.
With one show insider calling the approach to the new season under inexperienced new executive producer Nick Bilton a “five-alarm fire,” Darcy reports that both Weiss and Bilton are expected to hit the ground running — or else.
According to Darcy, “At this point in the summer break, more than a dozen or so stories should have already been screened, according to people familiar with the show’s internal processes. Indeed, I’m told that in prior years, producers and correspondents immediately pushed to secure screenings of their stories after the July break, vying to lock in a spot on the show’s season premiere. But this year, that has not happened. By some accounts, there has either been one story screening or none at all.
Internally, executives are fixated on one particular number—10.03 million—the number of viewers who tuned in for last season’s premiere. A veteran television news executive said there is a “false debate between the past and the future” occurring over the show, when it really should be a debate about who makes good television.
The executive noted that “Bari and Nick have no experience or record making good TV,” which is “why everyone who knows TV is betting against them.”
“It’s 10.03M or bust,” the executive told Status. “If they fall short, they’re cooked.”
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