Former '60 Minutes' Producer Reportedly Seeks $50M for Rival News Show

A former producer of CBS News’s 60 Minutes is interested in launching a rival current affairs show featuring journalists and production crew members who left the network now spearheaded by Bari Weiss, according to a report.

The long-running investigative news show has been in turmoil ever since Weiss was appointed editor-in-chief of CBS’s news division last year, suffering internal tensions, sliding ratings and a series of departures – notably losing anchor Scott Pelley – as the new boss tried to address its alleged liberal bias.

Producer Bill Owens left 60 Minutes last April, prior to Weiss’s arrival, amid an earlier dispute with President Donald Trump about the editing of an interview with his 2024 presidential rival Kamala Harris that aired in the run-up to Election Day.

He is now looking to pick up the pieces, according to The New York Post, and is seeking $50 million in funding to launch a new hour-long news program manned by some of the staff Weiss allegedly alienated and jettisoned, including Pelley, which he is said to have been shopping around to the major streaming platforms.

Ex-correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, former executive producer Tanya Simon and senior producers Guy Campanile, Draggan Mihailovich and Matthew Polevoy are also tipped to be part of the project.

A source close to Owens denied the plans and the producer himself declined to comment, the Post noted, but it cites other sources that say fired 60 Minutes staffers have put together a business plan and pitch deck for consideration by Netflix, Apple TV and YouTube.

Securing the funding and finding the right platform would be crucial to any such venture’s success, with the likes Pelley likely to have to take a significant pay cut in order to take part.

“I think they’re asking for too much money,” an insider said to be familiar with the project told the newspaper. “They’re looking at the old 60 Minutes model and they’re all used to mega salaries.”

Without the backing of a top streamer such as Netflix, a proposed show would have to operate on a shoestring budget and build a new subscriber base from scratch, a notoriously tricky proposition.

Weiss arrived at CBS in October when Paramount Skydance acquired her media company, The Free Press, for a reported $150 million – but her tenure quickly became defined by controversy and upheaval.

The discontent engulfed 60 Minutes in December when she delayed the airing of a segment alleging that “brutal and torturous conditions” prevailed at CECOT, the El Salvador mega-prison where the Trump administration has deported migrants.

The official verdict was that the piece “needed additional reporting” but the journalist involved, Alfonsi, insisted that best practice had been followed throughout. The report eventually aired with only minor changes on January 18.

Alfonsi was fired in May alongside Vega and Simon, leading Pelley to explode at the latter’s successor, Nick Bilton, during an editorial meeting, accusing Weiss of “murdering” the show. He was quickly shown the door after the blow-up.

Weiss has also been blamed for sidelining veteran anchor Lesley Stahl and giving more airtime to hand-picked Tony Dokoupil.

Bilton is said to have been upset at being rebuked by Pelley, who reportedly belittled his “slender qualifications,” and to have struggled to hire replacements for the talent lost.

However, he announced last week that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, author Sebastian Junger, Vice News veteran Gianna Toboni and British commentator Trevor Phillips would all be joining its presenting roster, along with network veteran Norah O’Donnell.