CBS News Names Nick Bilton Executive Producer of "60 Minutes" in Bid to Head Off Ratings Decline

Paramount Skydance's CBS News has appointed Nick Bilton as the new executive producer of "60 Minutes," replacing Tanya Simon, who spent more than 30 years at the program. The move puts a technology journalist and documentary filmmaker with no prior television news management experience at the helm of what the network describes as the No. 1 rated news broadcast in America for the past 52 years.

Bilton is a former technology columnist for The New York Times and has produced documentaries for HBO and Netflix, including "Unknown: Killer Robots" and "Biggest Heist Ever." He said he first met CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss socially in Los Angeles before later collaborating with her on those two projects.

The appointment comes amid a period of significant institutional turbulence at CBS. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is pursuing a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery and requires regulatory sign-off from the Trump administration to complete it — a backdrop that has fueled skepticism among some CBS News staff about the motivations behind recent editorial changes at the network.

In 2024, then-candidate Donald Trump sued "60 Minutes" alleging the show deceptively edited an interview with his opponent, Kamala Harris. Paramount settled that lawsuit for $16 million, a decision that drew criticism from veteran staff, including longtime correspondent Scott Pelley. Earlier this month, anchor Anderson Cooper announced his departure from the program.

CBS has also declined to renew "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" after 11 seasons, with the show airing its final episode earlier this month.

Bilton said in a phone interview Thursday that he intends to demonstrate his appointment is not driven by political considerations. "I will prove it with the work," he said. "I'm dedicated to holding people in power to account."

Despite the upheaval, "60 Minutes" ratings are currently up 9% from the prior year, according to Nielsen. Bilton and Weiss framed that strength as precisely the right moment to act. "It's still the No. 1 news broadcast in America. But history tells you disruption doesn't happen immediately when new technology comes along — it's usually a few years later," Bilton told CNBC. "We're on the precipice of this happening to broadcast TV. What was the best year of sales for Nokia? It was 2008, one year after the iPhone came out. Blogs came out in 1997-98. The New York Times had its best year of sales in 1999."

Bilton declined to detail the specific changes he plans to introduce, saying only that the overhaul will not be total. He said he intends to meet with "60 Minutes" staff before unveiling a formal plan "in a few weeks."

The new executive producer's lack of traditional TV news credentials is likely to draw continued scrutiny from within the newsroom. How Bilton navigates that skepticism — while managing a high-profile program operating under the shadow of a pending merger and regulatory politics — will be among the more closely watched editorial transitions in broadcast news this year.

Disclaimer