60 Minutes
Encyclopedia
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS
since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt
who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation.
In 2002, 60 Minutes was ranked #6 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
.
The inspiration for the show came from the controversial Canadian news program This Hour Has Seven Days
, which ran from 1964 to 1966, and in turn, was inspired by the British satire series That Was The Week That Was
. The show pioneered many of the most important investigative journalism techniques, including re-editing interviews, hidden cameras, and "gotcha" visits to the home or office of an investigative subject. Imitators sprang up in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom during the 1970s, as well as on local television news.
Initially, 60 Minutes aired as a bi-weekly show hosted by Harry Reasoner
and Mike Wallace
, debuting on September 24, 1968 and alternating weeks with other CBS News productions on Tuesday evenings at 10:00. The first edition, described by Reasoner in the opening as a "kind of a magazine for television," featured the following segments:
The first "magazine-cover" chroma key
was a photo of two helmeted policemen (for the Clark interview segment). Wallace and Reasoner sat in chairs on opposite sides of the set, which had a cream-colored backdrop; the more famous black backdrop (which is still used as of 2011) did not appear until the following year. The logo was in Helvetica
type with the word "Minutes" spelled in all lower-case letters; the logo most associated with the show did not appear until about 1974. Further, to extend the magazine motif, the producers added a "Vol. xx, No. xx" to the title display on the chroma key; that was seen until about 1971. The trademark stopwatch, however, did not appear on the inaugural broadcast; it would not debut until several episodes later. Alpo
dog food was the sole sponsor of the first program.
Don Hewitt, who had been a producer of the CBS Evening News
with Walter Cronkite
, sought out Wallace as a stylistic contrast to Reasoner. According to one historian of the show, the idea of the format was to make the hosts the reporters, to always feature stories that were of national importance but focused upon individuals involved with, or in conflict with, those issues, and to limit the reports' airtime to around thirteen minutes. However, the initial season was troubled by lack of network confidence, as the show did not garner ratings much higher than that of other CBS News documentaries. As a rule, during that era, news programming during prime time lost money; networks mainly scheduled public affairs programs in prime time in order to bolster the prestige of their news departments, and thus boost ratings for the regular evening newscasts, which were seen by far more people than documentaries and the like. 60 Minutes struggled under that stigma during its first three years.
Changes to 60 Minutes came fairly early in the program's history. When Reasoner left CBS to co-anchor ABC
's evening newscast
(he would return to CBS and the show in 1978), Morley Safer
joined the team in 1970, and he took over Reasoner's duties of reporting less aggressive stories. However, when Richard Nixon began targeting press access and reporting, even Safer, formerly the CBS News bureau head in Saigon and London, began to do "hard" investigative reports, and during the 1970–71 season alone 60 Minutes reported on cluster bomb
s, the South Vietnamese Army, draft dodger
s, Nigeria
, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland
.
and Nicholas von Hoffman
(later Shana Alexander
), a three-minute debate between spokespeople for the political right and left, respectively. This segment pioneered a format that would later be adapted by CNN
for its Crossfire
show. This ran until 1979, when Andy Rooney, whose commentaries were already alternating with the debate segment since the fall of 1978, replaced it. Rooney remained with the program as a regular until his last show on October 2, 2011.
introduced the Prime Time Access Rule
, which freed local network affiliates in the top 50 markets (in practice, the entire network) to take a half hour of prime time from the networks on Mondays through Saturdays and one full hour on Sundays. Because nearly all affiliates found production costs for the FCC's intended goal of increased public affairs programming very high and the ratings (thus advertising revenues) low, making it mostly unprofitable, the FCC created an exception for network-authored news and public affairs. After a six-month hiatus in late 1971, CBS thus found a prime place for 60 Minutes in a portion of that displaced time, 6–7 p.m. (Eastern time
; 5–6 Central) on Sundays, in January 1972.
This proved somewhat less than satisfactory, however, because in order to accommodate CBS
' telecasts of late afternoon National Football League
games, 60 Minutes went on hiatus during the fall from 1972 to 1975 (and the summer of 1972). This took place because football telecasts were protected contractually from interruptions in the wake of the infamous "Heidi Game
" incident on NBC
in November 1968. Despite the irregular scheduling, the program's hard-hitting reports attracted a steadily growing audience, particularly during the waning days of the Vietnam War
and the gripping events of the Watergate scandal
; at that time, few if any other major-network news shows did in-depth investigative reporting to the degree carried out by 60 Minutes. Eventually, during the summers of 1973 through 1975, CBS did allow the show back onto the prime time schedule proper, on Fridays in 1973 and Sundays the two years thereafter, as a replacement for the regular season's program.
It was only when the FCC returned an hour to the networks on Sundays (for children's/family or news programming), taken away from them four years earlier, in a 1975 amendment to the Access Rule that CBS finally found a viable permanent timeslot for 60 Minutes. When a family-oriented drama, Three for the Road
, ended after a 12-week run in the fall, the newsmagazine took its place at 7/6 p.m. on December 7. It has aired at that time since, for 36 years, making 60 Minutes not only the longest-running prime time program currently in production, but also the television program (excluding daily programs such as evening newscasts or breakfast shows) broadcasting for the longest length of time at a single time period each week in U.S. television history.
This move, and the addition of then-White House
correspondent Dan Rather
to the reporting team, made the program into a strong ratings hit and, eventually, a general cultural phenomenon. This was no less than a stunning reversal of the previously poor ratings performances of documentary programs on network television, as mentioned above. By 1976, 60 Minutes became the top-rated show on Sunday nights in the U.S. By 1979, it had achieved the number-one Nielsen rating
for all television programs, unheard of before for a news broadcast in prime time. This success translated into great profits for CBS; advertising rates went from $17,000 per thirty seconds in 1975 to $175,000 in 1982.
The program sometimes does not start until after 7 p.m., due largely to CBS's live broadcast of NFL games. At the conclusion of the game, the network will end its coverage right away and air 60 Minutes in its entirety (however, on the West Coast, because the actual end of the live games is much earlier in the afternoon in comparison to the Eastern and Central time zones, 60 Minutes is always able to start at its normal start time of 7 p.m. Pacific Time, leaving affiliates free to broadcast local news, the CBS Evening News
, and other local or syndicated programming leading up to 60 Minutes). The program's success has also led CBS Sports
to schedule the Masters Tournament, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
, and other events leading into 60 Minutes and the rest of the network's primetime lineup, thus (again, except on the West Coast) pre-empting the Sunday editions of the CBS Evening News
and affiliates' local newscasts.
, which had recently returned to CBS after having been shown on NBC for eight years. However, CBS would, in later years, schedule the film so that it would no longer pre-empt 60 Minutes. Another exception is anytime CBS airs the Super Bowl
or since 2003, alternating years where the AFC Championship Game has the 6:30 PM start time, which is played into primetime and followed by a special lead-out program.
on several of their radio stations at the same time as the television broadcast (in each station's own local market), such as WCBS-AM
, KNX
, WBBM-AM
, WWJ
, KCBS
and other stations across the country owned by CBS. An audio version of the full show without advertising is also distributed via podcast
and the iTunes Store
, beginning with the September 23, 2007 broadcast. The program's video also streams several hours after broadcast on CBSNews.com and CBS Interactive property CNET TV
.
between two stories. The stories are introduced from a set which has a backdrop resembling a magazine story on the same topic. The show undertakes its own investigations and follows up on investigations instigated by national newspapers and other sources.
of the figure, focusing upon the celebrity's early life story, obstacles, and choices, rather than offering a simple publicity
platform. Non-celebrity profiles usually feature a person who has accomplished a heroic action or striven to improve the world.
Occasionally, if a celebrity has written a book or has a current film in release, the segment featuring them will also promote the book or film. However, the celebrity in question will always be profiled in detail, and never appears on the show simply to promote his or her product.
with Edward R. Murrow
(a show for which Hewitt was the director its first few years) and the personality profiles of another Murrow program, Person to Person. In Hewitt's own words, 60 Minutes blends "higher Murrow" and "lower Murrow."
for the liberal, with Shana Alexander
taking over for von Hoffman after he departed in 1974. Although discontinued in 1979, when Andy Rooney, who had previously left the show with Harry Reasoner in 1970, returned to offer commentary, the segment was an innovation that caught the public imagination as a live version of competing editorial
s. Point/Counterpoint was also lampooned by the NBC
comedy series Saturday Night Live
, which featured Jane Curtin
and Dan Aykroyd
as debaters, with Aykroyd typically beginning his remarks with, "Jane, you ignorant slut", in the motion picture Airplane!
, in which the faux Kilpatrick argues in favor of the plane crashing, and in the earlier sketch comedy
film by the same directors, The Kentucky Fried Movie
, where the segment was called "Count/Pointercount".
A similar concept was revived briefly in March 2003, this time featuring Bob Dole
and Bill Clinton
, former opponents in the 1996 presidential election
. The pair agreed to do ten segments, which were called "Clinton/Dole" and "Dole/Clinton" in alternating weeks, but did not continue into the fall television season. Reports indicated that the segments were considered too gentlemanly, in the style of the earlier Point/Counterpoint, and lacked the feistiness of Crossfire.
as a "wacko," on occasion led to complaints from viewers. Rooney published several books documenting his contributions to the program, the best known of which are probably "Years Of Minutes" and "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney".
Andy Rooney retired from 60 Minutes, delivering his final commentary on October 2, 2011. It was his 1,097th commentary over his 33 year career on 60 Minutes. He died November 4, 2011, one month after his final broadcast.
intercut with preview clips of the episode's stories. The sequence ends with each of the current correspondents and hosts introducing themselves. The last host who appears then says, "Those stories and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 Minutes", followed by a final shot of the stopwatch. Before Rooney became a prominent fixture, and on days when he does not appear, the final line is "Those stories and more".
The show is the first regularly scheduled television program in American television history not to have ever used any type of theme music
. The only theme sound is from the stopwatch in the opening title credits, before each commercial break, and at the tail-end of the closing credits.
On Sunday, October 29, 2006, the opening sequence changed from a black background to white. The black background had been used for over a decade. Also, the gray background for the Aristo stopwatch in the "cover" changed to red, the color for the title text changed to white and the stopwatch itself changed from its decade-old diagonal position to an upright position.
Part-time correspondents :
Past part-time correspondents:
, 60 Minutes is the most successful broadcast in U.S. television history, since it was moved into its present timeslot in 1975. For five of its seasons it has been that year's top program, a feat matched by the sitcoms
All in the Family
and The Cosby Show
, and surpassed only by reality TV show American Idol
, which has been the #1 show for six consecutive seasons. 60 Minutes was a top ten show for 23 seasons in a row (1977–2000), an unsurpassed record.
60 Minutes first broke into the Ratings Top 20 during the 1976–77 season. The following season it was the fourth-most-watched show, and by 1979–80, it was the number one show. During the 21st century it remains among the top 20 programs in the Nielsen ratings
, and the highest-rated news magazine.
s, a record unsurpassed by any primetime show on any network.
s for the segments "All in the Family", an investigation into abuses by government and military contractors; "The CIA's Cocaine", which uncovered CIA involvement in drug smuggling; "Friendly Fire", a report on incidents of friendly fire
in the Gulf War
; and "Duke Rape Suspects Speak Out", the first interviews with the suspects in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. and "The Killings in Haditha," an investigation into the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines.
aircraft.
man who was wrongly convicted of armed robbery.
; it has aired at 7 p.m. Eastern Time Sundays since December 7, 1975. The 42nd season premiere took place on September 27, 2009. The longer-running Meet the Press
has also aired in prime time, but currently airs during the daytime, as it has for most of its history. The Walt Disney anthology television series, which premiered in 1954, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame
, which has aired since 1951, have aired longer, but none of them has aired in prime time continually, as 60 Minutes has done.
by Don Hewitt, concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story covered a supposed problem of "unintended acceleration" when the brake pedal was pushed, with emotional interviews with six people who sued Audi (unsuccessfully) after they crashed their cars, including one woman whose six year old boy had been killed. Footage was shown of an Audi 5000 with the accelerator moving down on its own, accelerating the car, after an expert witness employed by one of the plaintiffs modified it with a concealed device to cause it to do so. Independent investigators concluded that this was most likely due to driver incompetence, where the driver let their foot slip off the brake and onto the accelerator. Tests by Audi and independent journalists showed that even with the throttle wide open, the car would simply stall if the brakes were actually being used.
The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not reach the same level for another fifteen years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
and Transport Canada
to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies.
A rival to 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC
, would be found guilty of similar tactics years later regarding fuel tank integrity on General Motors pickup trucks.
claiming that the use of daminozide
(Alar) on apples presented an unacceptably high health risk to consumers. Apple sales dropped and CBS was sued unsuccessfully by apple growers. Alar was subsequently banned for use on food crops in the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA).
's personal and business life. One year after the 60 Minutes piece aired, Erhard filed a lawsuit against CBS, claiming that the broadcast contained several "false, misleading and defamatory" statements about Erhard. One month after filing the lawsuit, Erhard filed for dismissal. Erhard later told Larry King
in an interview that he dropped the suit after receiving legal advice telling him that in order to win it, it would not be sufficient to prove that CBS knew the allegations were false, but that he would also need to prove that CBS acted with malice
. The segment was filled with so many factual discrepancies that it was made unavailable with this disclaimer: “This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.”
Vice President for Research and Development Jeffrey Wigand
provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman
that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarette
s. (See transcription.) Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (glass fibers, ammonia
, etc.) with the intent of enhancing the effect of nicotine
. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt who, along with CBS lawyers, feared a billion dollar lawsuit from Brown and Williamson for tortious interference
for encouraging Wigand to violate his nondisclosure agreement. A number of people in CBS would benefit from a sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric Corporation
, including the head of CBS lawyers and CBS News. Also, because of the interview, the son of CBS President Laurence Tisch
(who also controlled Lorillard Tobacco
) was among the people from the big tobacco companies
at risk of being caught having committed perjury.
Because of the hesitation from Hewitt, The Wall Street Journal
instead broke Wigand's story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content, and was missing some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé
of the incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair
by Marie Brenner
, entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much
. The New York Times
wrote that "the traditions of Edward R. Murrow
were diluted in the process," though the movie revised the quote slightly, suggesting that 60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow." The incident was turned into a seven-times Oscar-nominated feature film entitled The Insider
, directed by Michael Mann and starring Russell Crowe
as Wigand, Al Pacino
as Bergman, and Christopher Plummer
as Mike Wallace
. Wallace denounced the portrayal of him as inaccurate to his stance on the issue.
s belonging to a particular firm to cross the border unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to 60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the piece, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents as an act of revenge for his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho successfully sued CBS for an unknown settlement, and Don Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction.
tribe over the remains of a skeleton, nicknamed Kennewick Man
, was reported on by 60 Minutes (October 25, 1998), to which the Umatilla tribe reacted very negatively. The tribe considered the segment heavily biased in favor of the scientists, cutting out important arguments, such as explanations of Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
. The report focused heavily on the racial politics of the controversy and also added inflammatory arguments, such as questioning the legitimacy of Native American sovereignty – much of the racial focus of the segment was later reported to be unfounded or misinterpreted.
media conglomerate (2000–2005), without disclosing the journalistic conflict-of-interest to viewers.
' Don Jackson, a data protection professional, is interviewed. Jackson himself declares in the program that: "A part of my job is to know the enemy". However, during the interview, Jackson shows a photo of Finnish upper level comprehensive school pupils and falsely identifies them as notorious Russian hackers.
In the photo, one of the children is wearing a jacket with the Coat of Arms of Finland on it. Another one is wearing a cap which clearly has the logo of Karjala
, a Finnish brand of beer, on it. The principal of the school in Taivalkoski
confirmed that the photo was taken about five years ago at the school.
The photo's exact origins are unknown, but it's widely known in Finland, being originally posted to a very popular Finnish social networking site, IRC-Galleria, in the early 2000s. From there, due to its partly humorous radical right content, it spread all over Finnish internet communities and even originated a couple of patriotically titled (but intentionally misspelled) mock sites.
60 Minutes did issue a correction and on-air apology.
(who also was the voice over the min program In the News
and was a anchor on the CBS Radio Network), along with Betsy Aaron (1978-1980) and Betty Ann Bowser (1980-1982)
said, "The Roman numeral II created some confusion on the part of the viewers and suggested a watered-down version". However, a widely known controversy which came to be known as "Rathergate", regarding a report that aired September 8, 2004, caused another name change. The show was renamed 60 Minutes Wednesday both to differentiate itself and to avoid tarnishing the Sunday edition, as the editions were editorially independent from one another. The show reverted to its original title with Roman numerals on July 8, 2005, when the show moved to a Friday night 8pm ET time slot to finish its run. Its last broadcast was on September 2, 2005.
started airing a 60 Minutes spin-off of its own, called 60 Minutes on CNBC. Hosted by Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft, it airs updated business reports from the original show and offers footage that the original broadcasts didn't have.
and affiliates.
Reporter Richard Carleton
suffered a heart attack on 7 May 2006. He asked a question at a news conference for the Beaconsfield Mine collapse
, then walked out and suffered cardiac arrest. Paramedic
s tried to revive him for 20 minutes until an ambulance
arrived, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Although they have the rights to the format, as of 2007 they do not have rights to the US stories. Nevertheless, they often air them by subleasing them from Network Ten
. In 1980 60 Minutes won a Logie Award
for their investigation of lethal abuses at Chelmsford
psychiatric hospital
in Sydney. On 16 September 2007, the Australian 60 Minutes did a segment on French sport Parkour
, which showcased famous traceurs Rhys James and Shaun Woods.
. In 1992 the rights were acquired by TVNZ, who began broadcasting it in 1993. The network aired the program for nine years before dropping it in 2002 for its own program, entitled Sunday. Sunday is currently the highest rating current affairs show broadcast on New Zealand television, followed by 20/20. 60 Minutes is now broadcast by rival network TV3.
and is hosted by Mário Crespo
.
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt
Don Hewitt
Donald Shepard "Don" Hewitt was an American television news producer and executive, best known for creating 60 Minutes, the CBS television news magazine, in 1968, which at the time of his death, was the longest-running prime-time broadcast on American television...
who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation.
In 2002, 60 Minutes was ranked #6 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time is TV Guides list of the 50 most entertaining and influential television series in American pop culture...
.
Early years
This Hour Has Seven Days
This Hour Has Seven Days is a controversial CBC Television newsmagazine which ran from 1964 to 1966. The show, inspired by the BBC-TV and NBC-TV satire series That Was The Week That Was, was created by Patrick Watson and Douglas Leiterman as an avenue for a more stimulating and boundary-pushing...
, which ran from 1964 to 1966, and in turn, was inspired by the British satire series That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme that was shown on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost...
. The show pioneered many of the most important investigative journalism techniques, including re-editing interviews, hidden cameras, and "gotcha" visits to the home or office of an investigative subject. Imitators sprang up in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom during the 1970s, as well as on local television news.
Initially, 60 Minutes aired as a bi-weekly show hosted by Harry Reasoner
Harry Reasoner
Harry Truman Reasoner was an American journalist for ABC and CBS News, known for his inventive use of language as a television commentator, and as a founder of the 60 Minutes program.-Biography:...
and Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace (journalist)
Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
, debuting on September 24, 1968 and alternating weeks with other CBS News productions on Tuesday evenings at 10:00. The first edition, described by Reasoner in the opening as a "kind of a magazine for television," featured the following segments:
- A look inside the headquarter suites of presidential candidates Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Hubert HumphreyHubert HumphreyHubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
during their respective parties' national conventions that summer; - Commentary by European writers Malcolm MuggeridgeMalcolm MuggeridgeThomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
, Peter von ZahnPeter von ZahnPeter von Zahn was a German author, film maker, and journalist.Born in Chemnitz as a son of an officer, he grew up in Dresden and studied law, history, and philosophy. He was drafted at the beginning of World War II. After the war, he was one of the founders of the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk...
, and Luigi Barzini, Jr.Luigi Barzini, Jr.Luigi Barzini Jr. was an Italian journalist, writer and politician most famous for his 1964 book The Italians, delving deeply into the Italian national character and introducing many Anglo-Saxon readers to Italian life and culture.-Early life:Barzini junior was born in Milan, Lombardy, the son of...
on the American electoral system; - A commentary by political columnist Art BuchwaldArt BuchwaldArthur Buchwald was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary...
; - An interview with then-Attorney GeneralUnited States Attorney GeneralThe United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Ramsey ClarkRamsey ClarkWilliam Ramsey Clark is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson...
about police brutality; - An abbreviated version of an Academy Award-winning short film by Saul BassSaul BassSaul Bass was a Jewish-American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences....
, Why Man CreatesWhy Man CreatesWhy Man Creates is a 1968 animated short documentary film which discusses the nature of creativity. It was written by Saul Bass and Mayo Simon, and directed by Saul and Elaine Bass.The movie won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject...
; and - A meditation by Wallace and Reasoner on the relation between perception and reality. Wallace said that the show aimed to "reflect reality," while acknowledging the differing perceptions of it.
The first "magazine-cover" chroma key
Chroma key
Chroma key compositing is a technique for compositing two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production...
was a photo of two helmeted policemen (for the Clark interview segment). Wallace and Reasoner sat in chairs on opposite sides of the set, which had a cream-colored backdrop; the more famous black backdrop (which is still used as of 2011) did not appear until the following year. The logo was in Helvetica
Helvetica
Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
type with the word "Minutes" spelled in all lower-case letters; the logo most associated with the show did not appear until about 1974. Further, to extend the magazine motif, the producers added a "Vol. xx, No. xx" to the title display on the chroma key; that was seen until about 1971. The trademark stopwatch, however, did not appear on the inaugural broadcast; it would not debut until several episodes later. Alpo
Alpo (pet food)
Alpo is an American brand of dog food marketed and manufactured by the Nestlé Purina Petcare subsidiary of Nestlé. The brand is offered as a canned or packaged soft food, as well as in dry kibbles.-History:...
dog food was the sole sponsor of the first program.
Don Hewitt, who had been a producer of the CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
with Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
, sought out Wallace as a stylistic contrast to Reasoner. According to one historian of the show, the idea of the format was to make the hosts the reporters, to always feature stories that were of national importance but focused upon individuals involved with, or in conflict with, those issues, and to limit the reports' airtime to around thirteen minutes. However, the initial season was troubled by lack of network confidence, as the show did not garner ratings much higher than that of other CBS News documentaries. As a rule, during that era, news programming during prime time lost money; networks mainly scheduled public affairs programs in prime time in order to bolster the prestige of their news departments, and thus boost ratings for the regular evening newscasts, which were seen by far more people than documentaries and the like. 60 Minutes struggled under that stigma during its first three years.
Changes to 60 Minutes came fairly early in the program's history. When Reasoner left CBS to co-anchor ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's evening newscast
World News with Charles Gibson
ABC World News is the flagship daily evening program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting Company television network in the United States. Currently, the weekday editions are anchored by Diane Sawyer and the weekend editions are anchored by David Muir. The program has been...
(he would return to CBS and the show in 1978), Morley Safer
Morley Safer
Morley Safer is a Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began in December 1970.-Life and career:...
joined the team in 1970, and he took over Reasoner's duties of reporting less aggressive stories. However, when Richard Nixon began targeting press access and reporting, even Safer, formerly the CBS News bureau head in Saigon and London, began to do "hard" investigative reports, and during the 1970–71 season alone 60 Minutes reported on cluster bomb
Cluster bomb
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller sub-munitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill enemy personnel and destroy vehicles...
s, the South Vietnamese Army, draft dodger
Draft dodger
Draft evasion is a term that refers to an intentional failure to comply with the military conscription policies of the nation to which he or she is subject...
s, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
.
"Point/Counterpoint" segment
In 1971, the "Point/Counterpoint" segment was introduced, featuring James J. KilpatrickJames J. Kilpatrick
James Jackson Kilpatrick was an American editorial columnist and grammarian. He was a legal abstractionist, a social conservative, and an economic libertarian according to Harvard ....
and Nicholas von Hoffman
Nicholas von Hoffman
Nicholas von Hoffman is an American journalist and author. He wrote for the Washington Post. Later, TV audiences knew him as a "Point-Counterpoint" commentator for CBS's 60 Minutes, from which Don Hewitt fired him in 1974.-Biography:He is of German-Russian extraction, descendant of Melchior...
(later Shana Alexander
Shana Alexander
Shana Alexander was an American journalist, born Shana Ager in New York City on October 6, 1925. Although she became the first woman staff writer and columnist for Life magazine, she was best known for her participation in the "Point-Counterpoint" debate segments of 60 Minutes with conservative...
), a three-minute debate between spokespeople for the political right and left, respectively. This segment pioneered a format that would later be adapted by CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
for its Crossfire
Crossfire (TV series)
Crossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...
show. This ran until 1979, when Andy Rooney, whose commentaries were already alternating with the debate segment since the fall of 1978, replaced it. Rooney remained with the program as a regular until his last show on October 2, 2011.
Effects from the Prime Time Access Rule
By 1971, the FCCFederal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
introduced the Prime Time Access Rule
Prime Time Access Rule
The Prime Time Access Rule was instituted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1970 to restrict the amount of network broadcast programming that a local television station, Owned-and-operated station by or affiliated with a television network may air during "prime time"...
, which freed local network affiliates in the top 50 markets (in practice, the entire network) to take a half hour of prime time from the networks on Mondays through Saturdays and one full hour on Sundays. Because nearly all affiliates found production costs for the FCC's intended goal of increased public affairs programming very high and the ratings (thus advertising revenues) low, making it mostly unprofitable, the FCC created an exception for network-authored news and public affairs. After a six-month hiatus in late 1971, CBS thus found a prime place for 60 Minutes in a portion of that displaced time, 6–7 p.m. (Eastern time
Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
; 5–6 Central) on Sundays, in January 1972.
This proved somewhat less than satisfactory, however, because in order to accommodate CBS
NFL on CBS
The NFL on CBS is the brand name of the CBS television network's coverage of the National Football League's American Football Conference games, produced by CBS Sports.-Market coverage and television policies:...
' telecasts of late afternoon National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
games, 60 Minutes went on hiatus during the fall from 1972 to 1975 (and the summer of 1972). This took place because football telecasts were protected contractually from interruptions in the wake of the infamous "Heidi Game
Heidi Game
The Heidi Game or Heidi Bowl was an American football game played on November 17, 1968. The home team, the Oakland Raiders, defeated the New York Jets, 43–32. The game is remembered for its exciting finish, as Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minute to overcome a 32–29 New York lead...
" incident on NBC
NFL on NBC
NFL on NBC is the brand given to NBC Sports coverage of National Football League games until 1998, when NBC lost the NFL American Football Conference rights to CBS...
in November 1968. Despite the irregular scheduling, the program's hard-hitting reports attracted a steadily growing audience, particularly during the waning days of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the gripping events of the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
; at that time, few if any other major-network news shows did in-depth investigative reporting to the degree carried out by 60 Minutes. Eventually, during the summers of 1973 through 1975, CBS did allow the show back onto the prime time schedule proper, on Fridays in 1973 and Sundays the two years thereafter, as a replacement for the regular season's program.
It was only when the FCC returned an hour to the networks on Sundays (for children's/family or news programming), taken away from them four years earlier, in a 1975 amendment to the Access Rule that CBS finally found a viable permanent timeslot for 60 Minutes. When a family-oriented drama, Three for the Road
Three for the Road (TV series)
Three for the Road was a 12-episode CBS drama television series about a recently widowed father and his two sons who in an attempt to assuage their grief, sell their house, procure a recreational vehicle, called the "Zebec", and travel around the United States...
, ended after a 12-week run in the fall, the newsmagazine took its place at 7/6 p.m. on December 7. It has aired at that time since, for 36 years, making 60 Minutes not only the longest-running prime time program currently in production, but also the television program (excluding daily programs such as evening newscasts or breakfast shows) broadcasting for the longest length of time at a single time period each week in U.S. television history.
This move, and the addition of then-White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
correspondent Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
to the reporting team, made the program into a strong ratings hit and, eventually, a general cultural phenomenon. This was no less than a stunning reversal of the previously poor ratings performances of documentary programs on network television, as mentioned above. By 1976, 60 Minutes became the top-rated show on Sunday nights in the U.S. By 1979, it had achieved the number-one Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
for all television programs, unheard of before for a news broadcast in prime time. This success translated into great profits for CBS; advertising rates went from $17,000 per thirty seconds in 1975 to $175,000 in 1982.
The program sometimes does not start until after 7 p.m., due largely to CBS's live broadcast of NFL games. At the conclusion of the game, the network will end its coverage right away and air 60 Minutes in its entirety (however, on the West Coast, because the actual end of the live games is much earlier in the afternoon in comparison to the Eastern and Central time zones, 60 Minutes is always able to start at its normal start time of 7 p.m. Pacific Time, leaving affiliates free to broadcast local news, the CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
, and other local or syndicated programming leading up to 60 Minutes). The program's success has also led CBS Sports
CBS Sports
CBS Sports is a division of CBS Broadcasting which airs sporting events on the American television network. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street.CBS...
to schedule the Masters Tournament, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
, and other events leading into 60 Minutes and the rest of the network's primetime lineup, thus (again, except on the West Coast) pre-empting the Sunday editions of the CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
and affiliates' local newscasts.
Pre-emptions since 1978
The program has rarely been pre-empted since about 1978. Two notable pre-emptions occurred in 1976 and 1977, to make room for the annual telecast of The Wizard of OzThe Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, which had recently returned to CBS after having been shown on NBC for eight years. However, CBS would, in later years, schedule the film so that it would no longer pre-empt 60 Minutes. Another exception is anytime CBS airs the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
or since 2003, alternating years where the AFC Championship Game has the 6:30 PM start time, which is played into primetime and followed by a special lead-out program.
Radio broadcast and Internet distribution
60 Minutes is also aired via CBS RadioCBS Radio
CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...
on several of their radio stations at the same time as the television broadcast (in each station's own local market), such as WCBS-AM
WCBS (AM)
WCBS , often referred to as "WCBS Newsradio 880" , is a radio station in New York City. Owned by CBS Radio, the station broadcasts on a clear channel and is the flagship station of the CBS Radio Network...
, KNX
KNX (AM)
KNX is an all-news radio station in Los Angeles, California, USA. The station operates on a clear channel and is owned by CBS Radio. KNX broadcasts from facilities shared with sister stations KFWB, KCBS-FM, KTWV, and KAMP on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile...
, WBBM-AM
WBBM (AM)
WBBM is an all-news CBS radio station in Chicago, Illinois broadcasting on the AM dial at 780 kHz. It is owned by CBS along with WBBM-TV....
, WWJ
WWJ (AM)
WWJ is Detroit, Michigan's only 24-hour all-news radio station. Broadcasting at 950 kHz, the station is owned and operated by CBS Corporation subsidiary CBS Radio. The station first went on the air on August 20, 1920 with the call sign 8MK...
, KCBS
KCBS (AM)
KCBS is an all-news radio station in San Francisco, California, that is a key West Coast flagship radio station of the CBS Radio Network and Westwood One. Its transmitter is located in Novato, California. KCBS currently has studios on Battery Street, where it shares the location with co-owned KPIX...
and other stations across the country owned by CBS. An audio version of the full show without advertising is also distributed via podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
and the iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
, beginning with the September 23, 2007 broadcast. The program's video also streams several hours after broadcast on CBSNews.com and CBS Interactive property CNET TV
CNET TV
CNET TV is a San Francisco, California based Internet television network showing original programming catering to the niche market of technology enthusiasts, operated by CBS Interactive through their CNET.com brand. CNET TV originated as the television program production arm of CNET Networks in the...
.
Schedule
| Season | Time slot |
|---|---|
| 1968-1969 | Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m. |
| 1969-1970 | |
| 1970-1971 | |
| 1971-1972 | Sundays at 6:00 p.m. |
| 1972-1973 | Fridays at 9:00 p.m. |
| 1973-1974 | Sundays at 10:30 p.m. |
| 1974-1975 | Sundays at 10:00 p.m. |
| 1975-1976 | Sundays at 7:00 p.m. |
| 1976-1977 | |
| 1977-1978 | |
| 1978-1979 | |
| 1979-1980 | |
| 1980-1981 | |
| 1981-1982 | |
| 1982-1983 | |
| 1983-1984 | |
| 1984-1985 | |
| 1985-1986 | |
| 1986-1987 | |
| 1987-1988 | |
| 1988-1989 | |
| 1989-1990 | |
| 1990-1991 | |
| 1991-1992 | |
| 1992-1993 | |
| 1993-1994 | |
| 1994-1995 | |
| 1995-1996 | |
| 1996-1997 | |
| 1997-1998 | |
| 1998-1999 | |
| 1999-2000 | |
| 2000-2001 | |
| 2001-2002 | |
| 2002-2003 | |
| 2003-2004 | |
| 2004-2005 | |
| 2005-2006 | |
| 2006-2007 | |
| 2007-2008 | |
| 2008-2009 | |
| 2009-2010 | |
| 2010-2011 | |
| 2011-2012 |
Format
The format of 60 Minutes consists of three long-form news stories, without superimposed graphics. There is a commercial breakTelevision advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
between two stories. The stories are introduced from a set which has a backdrop resembling a magazine story on the same topic. The show undertakes its own investigations and follows up on investigations instigated by national newspapers and other sources.
Story topics
Many stories center on allegations of wrongdoing and corruption on the part of corporations, politicians, and other public officials. Said figures are commonly either subjected to an interview, or evade contact with the 60 Minutes crew altogether, either by written notice or by simply fleeing from the approaching journalist and his camera crew. Instead of summarizing an interview or providing direct commentary on an issue, 60 Minutes prefers to air the interview itself. When the subject is hiding a secret, the viewers witness the evasion directly.Profile of the interviewee
The show also features profiles. The profiles are often of celebrities and offer up a biographyBiography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of the figure, focusing upon the celebrity's early life story, obstacles, and choices, rather than offering a simple publicity
Publicity
Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people , goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one...
platform. Non-celebrity profiles usually feature a person who has accomplished a heroic action or striven to improve the world.
Occasionally, if a celebrity has written a book or has a current film in release, the segment featuring them will also promote the book or film. However, the celebrity in question will always be profiled in detail, and never appears on the show simply to promote his or her product.
Reporting tone
In tone, 60 Minutes blends the probing journalism of the seminal 1950s CBS series See It NowSee It Now
See It Now is an American newsmagazine and documentary series broadcast by CBS from 1951 to 1958. It was created by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, Murrow being the host of the show. From 1952 to 1957, See It Now won four Emmy Awards and was nominated three times...
with Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
(a show for which Hewitt was the director its first few years) and the personality profiles of another Murrow program, Person to Person. In Hewitt's own words, 60 Minutes blends "higher Murrow" and "lower Murrow."
"Point/Counterpoint" segment
For most of the 1970s, the program included the Point/Counterpoint segment in which a liberal and a conservative commentator would debate a particular issue. This originally featured James J. Kilpatrick representing the conservative side and Nicholas von HoffmanNicholas von Hoffman
Nicholas von Hoffman is an American journalist and author. He wrote for the Washington Post. Later, TV audiences knew him as a "Point-Counterpoint" commentator for CBS's 60 Minutes, from which Don Hewitt fired him in 1974.-Biography:He is of German-Russian extraction, descendant of Melchior...
for the liberal, with Shana Alexander
Shana Alexander
Shana Alexander was an American journalist, born Shana Ager in New York City on October 6, 1925. Although she became the first woman staff writer and columnist for Life magazine, she was best known for her participation in the "Point-Counterpoint" debate segments of 60 Minutes with conservative...
taking over for von Hoffman after he departed in 1974. Although discontinued in 1979, when Andy Rooney, who had previously left the show with Harry Reasoner in 1970, returned to offer commentary, the segment was an innovation that caught the public imagination as a live version of competing editorial
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
s. Point/Counterpoint was also lampooned by the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
comedy series Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, which featured Jane Curtin
Jane Curtin
Jane Therese Curtin is an American actress and comedienne. She is commonly referred to as Queen of the Deadpan.First coming to prominence as an original cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s...
and Dan Aykroyd
Dan Aykroyd
Daniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, CM is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, winemaker and ufologist. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.-Early...
as debaters, with Aykroyd typically beginning his remarks with, "Jane, you ignorant slut", in the motion picture Airplane!
Airplane!
Airplane! is a 1980 American satirical comedy film directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and released by Paramount Pictures...
, in which the faux Kilpatrick argues in favor of the plane crashing, and in the earlier sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
film by the same directors, The Kentucky Fried Movie
The Kentucky Fried Movie
The Kentucky Fried Movie is an American comedy film, released in 1977 and directed by John Landis. The film's writers were the team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. This same team would go on to write and direct Airplane!, Top Secret! and the Police Squad! television series and its...
, where the segment was called "Count/Pointercount".
A similar concept was revived briefly in March 2003, this time featuring Bob Dole
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...
and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, former opponents in the 1996 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1996
The United States presidential election of 1996 was a contest between the Democratic national ticket of President Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and the Republican national ticket of former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas for President and former Housing Secretary Jack...
. The pair agreed to do ten segments, which were called "Clinton/Dole" and "Dole/Clinton" in alternating weeks, but did not continue into the fall television season. Reports indicated that the segments were considered too gentlemanly, in the style of the earlier Point/Counterpoint, and lacked the feistiness of Crossfire.
Andy Rooney segment
From 1978-2011, the show usually ended with a (usually light-hearted and humorous) commentary by Andy Rooney expounding on topics of wildly varying import, ranging from international politics, to economics, and to personal philosophy on every-day life. One recurring topic was measuring the amount of coffee in coffee cans. Rooney's pieces, particularly one in which he referred to actor Mel GibsonMel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
as a "wacko," on occasion led to complaints from viewers. Rooney published several books documenting his contributions to the program, the best known of which are probably "Years Of Minutes" and "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney".
Andy Rooney retired from 60 Minutes, delivering his final commentary on October 2, 2011. It was his 1,097th commentary over his 33 year career on 60 Minutes. He died November 4, 2011, one month after his final broadcast.
Opening sequence
The opening sequence features a 60 Minutes "magazine cover", with the signature Aristo stopwatchStopwatch
A stopwatch is a handheld timepiece designed to measure the amount of time elapsed from a particular time when activated to when the piece is deactivated. A large digital version of a stopwatch designed for viewing at a distance, as in a sports stadium, is called a stopclock.The timing functions...
intercut with preview clips of the episode's stories. The sequence ends with each of the current correspondents and hosts introducing themselves. The last host who appears then says, "Those stories and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 Minutes", followed by a final shot of the stopwatch. Before Rooney became a prominent fixture, and on days when he does not appear, the final line is "Those stories and more".
The show is the first regularly scheduled television program in American television history not to have ever used any type of theme music
Theme music
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
. The only theme sound is from the stopwatch in the opening title credits, before each commercial break, and at the tail-end of the closing credits.
On Sunday, October 29, 2006, the opening sequence changed from a black background to white. The black background had been used for over a decade. Also, the gray background for the Aristo stopwatch in the "cover" changed to red, the color for the title text changed to white and the stopwatch itself changed from its decade-old diagonal position to an upright position.
Web only content
Videos and transcripts of the show, as well as clips that did not make it to the broadcast have been available on the show's web site for several years prior to 2010. Beginning September 2010, the show launched a web site called "Sixty Minutes Overtime", in which stories broadcast on the air are discussed in further details above and beyond the broadcasted content.Current correspondents and commentators
Current hosts :- Steve KroftSteve KroftSteve Kroft is an American journalist and a longtime correspondent for 60 Minutes. His investigative reporting has garnered him much acclaim, including three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, one of which was an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement.-Early life:Born on August 22, 1945 in Kokomo,...
(host, 1989–present, co-editor) - Lesley StahlLesley StahlLesley Rene Stahl is an American television journalist. Since 1991, she has reported for CBS on 60 Minutes.-Personal life:...
(host, 1991–present, co-editor) - Bob SimonBob SimonBob Simon is a CBS News television correspondent.From 1964–67, Simon served as an American Foreign Service officer and was a Fulbright Scholar in France and a Woodrow Wilson scholar. From 1969–71, he served a tour in the CBS News London bureau. From 1971–77, he was based in the London and Saigon...
(host, 1996–present) - Morley SaferMorley SaferMorley Safer is a Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began in December 1970.-Life and career:...
(part-time correspondent, 1968–1970; host, 1970–present) - Scott PelleyScott PelleyScott Cameron Pelley is an American television journalist who is currently anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News and a correspondent for the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes...
(host, 2003–present)
Part-time correspondents :
- Charlie RoseCharlie RoseCharles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
(2008–present) - Lara LoganLara LoganLara Logan is a South African television and radio journalist, and war correspondent. She is the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, and a correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes.-Personal life:...
(2005–present) - Anderson CooperAnderson CooperAnderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories...
(2006–present) - Byron PittsByron PittsByron Pitts is an American journalist and author, who is currently a chief national correspondent for The CBS Evening News and a contributor to the newsmagazine 60 Minutes. He has covered the September 11, 2001 attacks and Iraq....
(2009–present)
Past correspondents & hosts
Past hosts:- Harry ReasonerHarry ReasonerHarry Truman Reasoner was an American journalist for ABC and CBS News, known for his inventive use of language as a television commentator, and as a founder of the 60 Minutes program.-Biography:...
(host, 1968–1970 & 1978–1991) - Mike WallaceMike Wallace (journalist)Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
(host, 1968–2006) - Ed BradleyEd BradleyEdward Rudolph "Ed" Bradley, Jr. was an American journalist, best known for twenty-six years of award-winning work on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes...
(part-time correspondent, 1976–1981; host, 1981–2006) - Dan RatherDan RatherDaniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
(part-time correspondent, 1968–1975; host, 1975–1981 & 2005–2006) - Diane SawyerDiane SawyerLila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
(part-time correspondent, 1981–1984; host, 1984–1989) - Meredith VieiraMeredith VieiraMeredith Louise Vieira is an American journalist, television personality, and game show host. She is best known for her roles as the original moderator of the ABC talk program The View and co-host of the long-running NBC News morning news program, Today...
(part-time correspondent, 1982–1985 & 1991–1993; host, 1990–1991) - Christiane AmanpourChristiane AmanpourChristiane Amanpour, CBE is anchor of ABC News's This Week and formerly chief international correspondent at CNN, where she worked for 27 years. She is a Board Member at the IWMF .-Early years:...
(part-time correspondent, 1996–2000; host, 2000–2005)
Past part-time correspondents:
- Charles KuraltCharles KuraltCharles Kuralt was an American journalist. He was most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.Kuralt's "On the Road"...
(1968–1979) - Walter CronkiteWalter CronkiteWalter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
(1968–1981) - Roger MuddRoger MuddRoger Mudd is a U.S. television journalist and broadcaster, most recently as the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor of CBS Evening News, co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and hosted NBC's Meet the Press, and NBC's American...
(1968–1980) - Eric SevareidEric SevareidArnold Eric Sevareid was a CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents—dubbed "Murrow's Boys"—because they were hired by pioneering CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow....
(1968–1969) - Bill PlanteBill PlanteBill Plante is a veteran journalist and correspondent for CBS News, having joined the network in 1964. He has been a White House correspondent for CBS and reports regularly on The Early Show and the CBS Evening News. He anchored CBS Sunday Night News from 1988 to 1995.-References:...
(1968–1995) - John HartJohn Hart (journalist)John Hart is a retired American television journalist who worked for several different television networks during the 1960s through the 1990s....
(1969–1975) - Bob SchiefferBob SchiefferBob Lloyd Schieffer is an American television journalist who has been with CBS News since 1969, serving 23 years as anchor on the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News from 1973 to 1996; chief Washington correspondent since 1982, moderator of the Sunday public affairs show Face the Nation since...
(1973–1996) - Morton DeanMorton DeanMorton Dean is an American television news journalist who has worked for CBS News and ABC News since the mid-1960s....
(1975–1979) - Marlene SandersMarlene SandersMarlene Sanders began her broadcast journalism career in 1955 working for Mike Wallace of CBS, as his local producer. In those days, women were usually in the newsroom solely to perform secretarial functions....
(1978–1987) - Charles OsgoodCharles OsgoodCharles Osgood is a radio and television commentator in the United States. His daily program, The Osgood File, has been broadcast on the CBS Radio Network since 1971. He is also known for being the voice of the narrator of Horton Hears a Who!, an animated film released in 2008, based on the book...
(1981–1994) - Charlie RoseCharlie RoseCharles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
(1984–1991) - Forrest SawyerForrest SawyerForrest Sawyer is an American broadcast journalist. Sawyer worked 11 years with ABC News, where he frequently anchored ABC World News Tonight and Nightline and reported for all ABC News broadcasts...
(1985–1987) - Connie ChungConnie ChungConnie Chung, full name: Constance Yu-Hwa Chung Povich is an American journalist who has been an anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and U.S...
(1990–1993) - Paula Zahn (1990–1999)
- John Roberts (1992–2005)
- Allen Martin (1994–1995)
- Russ MitchellRuss MitchellRussell Mitchell is an American journalist for CBS, anchor of the Early Show on Saturday, and weekend anchor of the CBS Evening News.-Early years:...
(1995–1998) - Carol MarinCarol MarinCarol Marin is a television and print journalist based in Chicago, Illinois.She began her career in 1972 at WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee working as a reporter, anchor, and assistant news director....
(1997-2002) - Bryant GumbelBryant GumbelBryant Charles Gumbel is an American television journalist and sportscaster. He is best known for his 15 years as co-host of NBC's The Today Show. He is the younger brother of sportscaster Greg Gumbel.-Early life:...
(1998–2002) - Katie CouricKatie CouricKatherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...
(2006–2011)
Commentators
Commentators for 60 Minutes have included:- James J. KilpatrickJames J. KilpatrickJames Jackson Kilpatrick was an American editorial columnist and grammarian. He was a legal abstractionist, a social conservative, and an economic libertarian according to Harvard ....
(Conservative debater, 1971–1979) - Shana AlexanderShana AlexanderShana Alexander was an American journalist, born Shana Ager in New York City on October 6, 1925. Although she became the first woman staff writer and columnist for Life magazine, she was best known for her participation in the "Point-Counterpoint" debate segments of 60 Minutes with conservative...
(Liberal debater, 1975–1979) - Nicholas von HoffmanNicholas von HoffmanNicholas von Hoffman is an American journalist and author. He wrote for the Washington Post. Later, TV audiences knew him as a "Point-Counterpoint" commentator for CBS's 60 Minutes, from which Don Hewitt fired him in 1974.-Biography:He is of German-Russian extraction, descendant of Melchior...
(Liberal debater, 1971–1974) - Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
(Liberal debater, 2003) - Bob DoleBob DoleRobert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...
(Conservative debater, 2003) - Stanley CrouchStanley CrouchStanley Crouch is an American music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, and novelist, perhaps best known for his jazz criticism, and his novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?- Biography :...
(Commentator, 1996) - Molly IvinsMolly IvinsMary Tyler "Molly" Ivins was an American newspaper columnist, populist, political commentator, humorist and author.-Early life and education:Ivins was born in Monterey, California, and raised in Houston, Texas...
(Liberal commentator, 1996) - P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'RourkePatrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on...
(Conservative commentator, 1996) - Andy Rooney (Commentator, 1978-2011)
Ratings
Based on ratingsNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, 60 Minutes is the most successful broadcast in U.S. television history, since it was moved into its present timeslot in 1975. For five of its seasons it has been that year's top program, a feat matched by the sitcoms
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
and The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...
, and surpassed only by reality TV show American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
, which has been the #1 show for six consecutive seasons. 60 Minutes was a top ten show for 23 seasons in a row (1977–2000), an unsurpassed record.
60 Minutes first broke into the Ratings Top 20 during the 1976–77 season. The following season it was the fourth-most-watched show, and by 1979–80, it was the number one show. During the 21st century it remains among the top 20 programs in the Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, and the highest-rated news magazine.
Emmy Awards
As of September 26th, 2011, 60 Minutes had won a total of 95 Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
s, a record unsurpassed by any primetime show on any network.
Peabody Awards
The show won Peabody AwardPeabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
s for the segments "All in the Family", an investigation into abuses by government and military contractors; "The CIA's Cocaine", which uncovered CIA involvement in drug smuggling; "Friendly Fire", a report on incidents of friendly fire
Friendly fire
Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
in the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
; and "Duke Rape Suspects Speak Out", the first interviews with the suspects in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. and "The Killings in Haditha," an investigation into the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines.
Other awards
The show received an Investigative Reporter and Editor medal for their segment "The Osprey", documenting a Marine coverup of deadly flaws in the V-22 OspreyV-22 Osprey
The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-mission, military, tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing , and short takeoff and landing capability...
aircraft.
Impact on innocent victims
In 1983, a report by Morley Safer, "Lenell Geter's in Jail," helped free from prison a TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
man who was wrongly convicted of armed robbery.
Record of longest running show
The show currently holds the record for the longest continuously running program of any genre scheduled during American network prime timePrime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
; it has aired at 7 p.m. Eastern Time Sundays since December 7, 1975. The 42nd season premiere took place on September 27, 2009. The longer-running Meet the Press
Meet the Press
Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...
has also aired in prime time, but currently airs during the daytime, as it has for most of its history. The Walt Disney anthology television series, which premiered in 1954, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
, which has aired since 1951, have aired longer, but none of them has aired in prime time continually, as 60 Minutes has done.
Controversies
The show has been praised for landmark journalism and received many awards. However, it has also become embroiled in some controversy, including:Unintended acceleration
On November 23, 1986, 60 Minutes aired a segment greenlitGreenlight
To green-light a project is to give permission or a go ahead to move forward with a project. In the context of the movie and TV businesses, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance, thereby allowing the project to move forward from the development phase to...
by Don Hewitt, concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story covered a supposed problem of "unintended acceleration" when the brake pedal was pushed, with emotional interviews with six people who sued Audi (unsuccessfully) after they crashed their cars, including one woman whose six year old boy had been killed. Footage was shown of an Audi 5000 with the accelerator moving down on its own, accelerating the car, after an expert witness employed by one of the plaintiffs modified it with a concealed device to cause it to do so. Independent investigators concluded that this was most likely due to driver incompetence, where the driver let their foot slip off the brake and onto the accelerator. Tests by Audi and independent journalists showed that even with the throttle wide open, the car would simply stall if the brakes were actually being used.
The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not reach the same level for another fifteen years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is an agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, part of the Department of Transportation...
and Transport Canada
Transport Canada
Transport Canada is the department within the government of Canada which is responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of transportation in Canada. It is part of the Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities portfolio...
to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies.
A rival to 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
, would be found guilty of similar tactics years later regarding fuel tank integrity on General Motors pickup trucks.
Alar
In February 1989, 60 Minutes aired a report by the Natural Resources Defense CouncilNatural Resources Defense Council
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a New York City-based, non-profit, non-partisan international environmental advocacy group, with offices in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing...
claiming that the use of daminozide
Daminozide
Daminozide is a plant growth regulator, a chemical sprayed on fruit to regulate their growth, make their harvest easier, and enhance their color. First approved for use in the U.S. in 1963, it was primarily used on apples until 1989 when it was voluntarily withdrawn by the manufacturer after the U.S...
(Alar) on apples presented an unacceptably high health risk to consumers. Apple sales dropped and CBS was sued unsuccessfully by apple growers. Alar was subsequently banned for use on food crops in the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
(EPA).
Timothy McVeigh
On March 12, 2000, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. At the time, McVeigh had already been convicted and sentenced to death for the bombing and subsequent death of 168 people. On the program McVeigh was given the opportunity to vent against the government. Following the program, a federal policy called the Special Confinement Unit Media Policy was enacted prohibiting face-to-face interviews with death row inmates. This policy was later subject to a legal challenge but was ultimately upheld by the United States Supreme Court in March 2010.Werner Erhard
On March 3, 1991, 60 Minutes broadcast an episode titled "Werner Erhard". The program, which CBS later removed from their archives for factual inaccuracies, dealt with controversies involving Werner ErhardWerner Erhard
Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...
's personal and business life. One year after the 60 Minutes piece aired, Erhard filed a lawsuit against CBS, claiming that the broadcast contained several "false, misleading and defamatory" statements about Erhard. One month after filing the lawsuit, Erhard filed for dismissal. Erhard later told Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
in an interview that he dropped the suit after receiving legal advice telling him that in order to win it, it would not be sufficient to prove that CBS knew the allegations were false, but that he would also need to prove that CBS acted with malice
Malice
Malice may refer to:* Malice , a legal term describing the intent to harm* Jerry Tuite , American professional wrestler also known by the ring name Malice-Entertainment:...
. The segment was filled with so many factual discrepancies that it was made unavailable with this disclaimer: “This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.”
Brown and Williamson
In 1995, former Brown & WilliamsonBrown & Williamson
Brown & Williamson was an American tobacco company and subsidiary of the giant British American Tobacco, that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes...
Vice President for Research and Development Jeffrey Wigand
Jeffrey Wigand
Jeffrey S. Wigand is a former vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky, who worked on the development of reduced-harm cigarettes...
provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman
Lowell Bergman
Lowell A. Bergman is an American investigative reporter with The New York Times and a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline...
that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s. (See transcription.) Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (glass fibers, ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
, etc.) with the intent of enhancing the effect of nicotine
Nicotine
Nicotine is an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants that constitutes approximately 0.6–3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco, with biosynthesis taking place in the roots and accumulation occurring in the leaves...
. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt who, along with CBS lawyers, feared a billion dollar lawsuit from Brown and Williamson for tortious interference
Tortious interference
Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of tort, occurs when a person intentionally damages the plaintiff's contractual or other business relationships...
for encouraging Wigand to violate his nondisclosure agreement. A number of people in CBS would benefit from a sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric Corporation
Westinghouse Electric (1886)
Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...
, including the head of CBS lawyers and CBS News. Also, because of the interview, the son of CBS President Laurence Tisch
Laurence Tisch
Laurence Alan "Larry" Tisch was an American businessman, Wall Street investor and self-made billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995...
(who also controlled Lorillard Tobacco
Lorillard Tobacco Company
Lorillard Tobacco Company is an American tobacco company marketing cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max. Lorillard is a member of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.- History :...
) was among the people from the big tobacco companies
Big Tobacco
Big Tobacco is a pejorative term often applied to the tobacco industry in general, or more particularly to the "big three" tobacco corporations in the United States: Philip Morris , Reynolds American and Lorillard...
at risk of being caught having committed perjury.
Because of the hesitation from Hewitt, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
instead broke Wigand's story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content, and was missing some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
of the incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
by Marie Brenner
Marie Brenner
Marie Brenner is an American author, investigative journalist and writer-at-large for Vanity Fair. She has also written for New York, The New Yorker and the Boston Herald and has taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism...
, entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much
The Man Who Knew Too Much (article)
The Man Who Knew Too Much was an influential article on the tobacco industry "whistleblower" Jeffrey Wigand, written by journalist Marie Brenner for the May 1996 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. The article was subsequently adapted into the 1999 film The Insider, starring Russell Crowe.-External...
. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that "the traditions of Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
were diluted in the process," though the movie revised the quote slightly, suggesting that 60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow." The incident was turned into a seven-times Oscar-nominated feature film entitled The Insider
The Insider (film)
The Insider is a 1999 film based on the true story of a 60 Minutes television series segment, as seen through the eyes of a real tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand. The 60 Minutes story originally aired in November 1995 in an altered form because of objections by CBS’ then-owner, Laurence Tisch, who...
, directed by Michael Mann and starring Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
as Wigand, Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
as Bergman, and Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
as Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace (journalist)
Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
. Wallace denounced the portrayal of him as inaccurate to his stance on the issue.
U.S. Customs Service
60 Minutes alleged in 1997 that agents of the U.S. Customs Service ignored drug trafficking across the Mexico – United States border at San Diego. The only evidence was a memorandum apparently written by Rudy Camacho, who was the head of the San Diego branch office. Based on this memo, CBS alleged that Camacho had allowed truckTruck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
s belonging to a particular firm to cross the border unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to 60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the piece, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents as an act of revenge for his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho successfully sued CBS for an unknown settlement, and Don Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction.
Kennewick man
A legal battle between archaeologists and the UmatillaUmatilla (tribe)
The Umatilla are a Sahaptin-speaking Native American group living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who traditionally inhabited the Columbia Plateau region of the northwestern United States....
tribe over the remains of a skeleton, nicknamed Kennewick Man
Kennewick Man
Kennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, USA, on July 28, 1996...
, was reported on by 60 Minutes (October 25, 1998), to which the Umatilla tribe reacted very negatively. The tribe considered the segment heavily biased in favor of the scientists, cutting out important arguments, such as explanations of Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act , Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American "cultural items" to...
. The report focused heavily on the racial politics of the controversy and also added inflammatory arguments, such as questioning the legitimacy of Native American sovereignty – much of the racial focus of the segment was later reported to be unfounded or misinterpreted.
Viacom/CBS cross-promotion
In recent years the show has been accused of promoting books, films, and interviews with celebrities who are published or promoted by sister businesses in the ViacomViacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
media conglomerate (2000–2005), without disclosing the journalistic conflict-of-interest to viewers.
"The Internet Is Infected" episode and the false hacker photo
In the episode "The Internet Is Infected" (March 29, 2009) SecureWorksSecureWorks
SecureWorks, Inc Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, SecureWorks, Inc. is a U.S.-based managed security services provider that provides information security services and protection of computer, network and information assets from malicious activity or cybercrime for its customers...
' Don Jackson, a data protection professional, is interviewed. Jackson himself declares in the program that: "A part of my job is to know the enemy". However, during the interview, Jackson shows a photo of Finnish upper level comprehensive school pupils and falsely identifies them as notorious Russian hackers.
In the photo, one of the children is wearing a jacket with the Coat of Arms of Finland on it. Another one is wearing a cap which clearly has the logo of Karjala
Karjala
Karjala is a Finnish lager type beer that is manufactured by the Hartwall brewery. Karjala beer was manufactured by the cooperative shop Osuusliike Itä-Karjala owned Sortavalan panimo Oy brewery from 1932 until 1944. Production was resumed in 1948....
, a Finnish brand of beer, on it. The principal of the school in Taivalkoski
Taivalkoski
Taivalkoski is a municipality of Finland, it is located in the Province of Oulu and is part of the Northern Ostrobothnia region.The municipality has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water. The population density is....
confirmed that the photo was taken about five years ago at the school.
The photo's exact origins are unknown, but it's widely known in Finland, being originally posted to a very popular Finnish social networking site, IRC-Galleria, in the early 2000s. From there, due to its partly humorous radical right content, it spread all over Finnish internet communities and even originated a couple of patriotically titled (but intentionally misspelled) mock sites.
60 Minutes did issue a correction and on-air apology.
30 Minutes
This newsmagazine was patterned after 60 Minutes and it was aimed at children. It aired as the final program in CBS's Saturday morning lineup from 1978-1982. It was hosted by Christopher GlennChristopher Glenn
Joseph Christopher Glenn was an American radio and television news journalist who worked in broadcasting for over 45 years and spent the final 35 years of his career at CBS, retiring in 2006 at the age of 68.-Early life:...
(who also was the voice over the min program In the News
In the News
In the News was a series of two-minute televised video segments that summarized topical news stories for children and pre-teens. The segments were broadcast in the United States on the CBS television network from 1971 until 1986, between Saturday morning animated cartoon programs, as were the...
and was a anchor on the CBS Radio Network), along with Betsy Aaron (1978-1980) and Betty Ann Bowser (1980-1982)
60 Minutes More
60 Minutes More was a spin off that ran for a single television season during 1996 and 1997. The episodes featured popular stories from the past that were expanded with updates on the original story. Each episode featured three of these segments.60 Minutes II
In 1999, a second edition of 60 Minutes was started in the U.S., called 60 Minutes II. This edition was later renamed 60 Minutes by CBS for the fall of 2004 in an effort to sell it as a high-quality program, since some had sarcastically referred to it as 60 Minutes, Jr. CBS News president Andrew HeywardAndrew Heyward
Andrew Heyward is a former President of CBS News, serving from January 1996 until early November 2005. Currently, he is a Senior Advisor to Marketspace LLC, Monitor Group's digital media practice, where he works with clients to create and strengthen original online content, make more effective use...
said, "The Roman numeral II created some confusion on the part of the viewers and suggested a watered-down version". However, a widely known controversy which came to be known as "Rathergate", regarding a report that aired September 8, 2004, caused another name change. The show was renamed 60 Minutes Wednesday both to differentiate itself and to avoid tarnishing the Sunday edition, as the editions were editorially independent from one another. The show reverted to its original title with Roman numerals on July 8, 2005, when the show moved to a Friday night 8pm ET time slot to finish its run. Its last broadcast was on September 2, 2005.
60 Minutes on CNBC
In 2011, CNBCCNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
started airing a 60 Minutes spin-off of its own, called 60 Minutes on CNBC. Hosted by Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft, it airs updated business reports from the original show and offers footage that the original broadcasts didn't have.
25th anniversary edition
For the 60 Minutes 25th anniversary in 1993, Charles Kuralt interviewed Don Hewitt, the active correspondents, some former correspondents, and revisited notable stories and celebrities. This was later released commercially.Australia
The Australian version of 60 Minutes premiered on 11 February 1979. It still airs each Sunday night at 7:30pm on the Nine NetworkNine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
and affiliates.
Reporter Richard Carleton
Richard Carleton
Richard George Carleton was a multi-Logie Award winning Australian television journalist.-Education:Carleton was born in Bowral, New South Wales...
suffered a heart attack on 7 May 2006. He asked a question at a news conference for the Beaconsfield Mine collapse
Beaconsfield mine collapse
The Beaconsfield Mine collapse occurred on 25 April 2006 in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia. Of the 17 people who were in the mine at the time, 14 escaped immediately following the collapse, one was killed and the remaining two were found alive using a remote-controlled device...
, then walked out and suffered cardiac arrest. Paramedic
Paramedic
A paramedic is a healthcare professional that works in emergency medical situations. Paramedics provide advanced levels of care for medical emergencies and trauma. The majority of paramedics are based in the field in ambulances, emergency response vehicles, or in specialist mobile units such as...
s tried to revive him for 20 minutes until an ambulance
Ambulance
An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
arrived, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Although they have the rights to the format, as of 2007 they do not have rights to the US stories. Nevertheless, they often air them by subleasing them from Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
. In 1980 60 Minutes won a Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
for their investigation of lethal abuses at Chelmsford
Chelmsford
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...
psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
in Sydney. On 16 September 2007, the Australian 60 Minutes did a segment on French sport Parkour
Parkour
Parkour is a method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency. Originally developed in France, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping...
, which showcased famous traceurs Rhys James and Shaun Woods.
Germany
In the mid-1980s, an edited version (approx. 30 minutes in length) of the U.S. broadcast edition of 60 Minutes was shown for a time on West German television. This version retained the English-language soundtrack of the original, but also featured German subtitles.New Zealand
The New Zealand version of 60 Minutes has aired on national television since 1989, when it was shown on TV3TV3 (New Zealand)
TV3 is a New Zealand commercial television network, owned by MediaWorks New Zealand. Launched on 26 November 1989, the first private television network in New Zealand...
. In 1992 the rights were acquired by TVNZ, who began broadcasting it in 1993. The network aired the program for nine years before dropping it in 2002 for its own program, entitled Sunday. Sunday is currently the highest rating current affairs show broadcast on New Zealand television, followed by 20/20. 60 Minutes is now broadcast by rival network TV3.
Portugal
The Portuguese version of 60 Minutes airs on SIC NotíciasSIC Notícias
SIC Notícias is the cable news channel of the Portuguese television network SIC and the second thematic channel of the station. It replaced CNL , a Lisbon region independent cable news channel owned by TV Cabo, on January 8, 2001...
and is hosted by Mário Crespo
Mário Crespo
-Early life:He was born in Coimbra, his father was an employee of the Portuguese bank Banco Nacional Ultramarino , and his mother, a professor at the Commercial School. As civil servants of the Portuguese Empire, they moved to Portuguese Mozambique capital, Lourenço Marques, with their only baby son...
.
Other versions
- A short-lived Mexican version aired in the late 1970s.
- A PeruPeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian version aired in the early 1980s, called 60 Minutos. However, in the late 1980s also existed a similarly named series, but unrelated to the series produced by CBS News. - In 2004, BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
's Rede BandeirantesRede BandeirantesRede Bandeirantes , officially nicknamed Band or Band Network, is a television network from Brazil, based in São Paulo. Part of the Grupo Bandeirantes de Comunicação , it aired for the first time in 1967...
planned a licensed localized version, but the plan was canceled. - CBS Television Studios is rumoured to be planning licensed localized versions for several Latin AmericaLatin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries. - Edited reruns of 60 Minutes interviews have aired on various cable outlets in the United States, including TV LandTV LandTV Land is an American cable television network launched on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon...
and ESPN ClassicESPN ClassicESPN Classic is a sports channel that features reruns of famous sporting events, sports documentaries, and sports themed movies. Such programs includes biographies of famous sports figures or a rerun of a famous World Series or Super Bowl, often with added commentary on the event...
. - An investigative version of 60 minutes will debut soon on Investigation Discovery under the title 60 Minutes on ID.
- A new spinoff, titled 60 Minutes on CNBC, has been airing on CNBCCNBCCNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
as of 2011.
See also
- This Hour Has Seven DaysThis Hour Has Seven DaysThis Hour Has Seven Days is a controversial CBC Television newsmagazine which ran from 1964 to 1966. The show, inspired by the BBC-TV and NBC-TV satire series That Was The Week That Was, was created by Patrick Watson and Douglas Leiterman as an avenue for a more stimulating and boundary-pushing...
, which pre-dates 60 Minutes by a couple of years, was similar in journalistic style and format
Book references
- Who's Who in America 1998, "Hewitt, Don S." Marquis Who's Who: New Providence, NJ, 1998. p. 1925.
- Who's Who in America 1998, "Wallace, Mike." Marquis Who's Who: New Providence, NJ, 1998. p. 4493.
- Madsen, Axel. 60 Minutes: The Power and the Politics of America's Most Popular TV News Show. Dodd, Mead and Company: New York City, 1984.
U.S. version
Australian version
- Australia's 60 Minutes official website from Nine NetworkNine NetworkThe Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...