The newly retooled 60 Minutes suffered a heavy TV audience falloff in its season premiere, Variety reports. The ratings for the investigative news program’s first episode dropped 21% from the previous season’s premiere, declining from 10.02 million to 7.94 million viewers according to Nielsen data. Additionally, viewers ages 25 to 54 were down 33% to about 1.58 million compared to last year.
Prior to 60 Minutes, CBS broadcast the Packers-Vikings football game, which received 18.6 million viewers — a lower number than the NFL game which led into last year’s 60 Minutes premiere, thanks to an NFL decision to schedule doubleheaders on both the CBS and Fox networks. 60 Minutes still lost over 10 million viewers from its lead-in, though.
Sunday marked the beginning of the show’s 59th season, having first debuted on September 24th, 1968. This latest season, though, is the culmination of a major revamping of 60 Minutes by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and new executive producer Nick Bilton. That revamping included the controversial firing of correspondent Scott Pelley after a public battle with Weiss over the direction of the show. Other reporters and behind-the-scenes figures were also shown the door or not asked to return over the last year.
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Additionally, accusations of introducing political bias have plagued Weiss during her short tenure, allegations that she and the network have denied. CBS settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes segment in 2025 didn’t help perceptions, with commentators saying the network was caving to political interference with press freedoms.
Bilton has instituted changes in how the show is presented, though there were many familiar elements in the premiere. The featured segments included a story on a US airman who was shot down in Iran, a hidden camera look at brokers for criminal pardons by Trump, and a promise to devote more future reporting to the latest developments in AI.
Here’s the @CBSNewsPress release about the “60 Minutes” season premiere. The newsmag averaged 7.94 million viewers, down from 10 million for the premiere episode last fall. pic.twitter.com/8luB3hT6UG
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 15, 2026
