60 Minutes Gets Drastic Changes, Nick Bilton Named Executive Producer

Change is coming to 60 Minutes: CBS News announced the appointment of Nick Bilton as executive producer of the long-running newsmagazine show.

The author of two New York Times bestsellers, Bilton was previously a columnist for The New York Times and a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. He is also a filmmaker, having written, directed, and produced Fake Famous, a 2021 documentary about a social experiment in which three regular people faked fame to become social media influencers.

As a result of the appointment, CBS News announced that Tanya Simon, who had been serving as executive producer of the show, would be departing the network.

In announcing Bilton’s hiring in a note to staff, CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski said they are “thrilled” to have him lead 60 Minutes into its next chapter. They said his energy and ambition matched those of the show’s founders.

The duo characterized his prior work as one that prompted federal investigations, congressional inquiries, and criminal charges.

Bilton will be tasked with expanding 60 Minutes beyond a one-hour television broadcast, “deepening its role across CBS News, and holding everything we produce to the ambition, fairness, and fearlessness that have defined 60 Minutes at its best,” according to the pair.

Here’s the Bari Weiss and Tom Cibrowski memo announcing a big overhaul of @60Minutes:

Dear Colleagues,

During the first-ever 60 Minutes broadcast, CBS News’s Harry Reasoner opened the show—a first of its kind television newsmagazine—by calling it “a sort of new approach.” That…

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 28, 2026

In his introductory note to staff, Bilton said his job is to ensure 60 Minutes does not suffer the same fate as many other entities that failed to adapt to changing times, noting, “Evolving or dying isn’t a threat. It’s simple math.”

Bilton also spoke about the “notebook full of ideas” that he has about the show, future correspondents, as well as about how 60 Minutes only produces one hour of television “in a world that consumes content around the clock.”

Over the next month, Bilton will be going on an internal meet-the-people tour, hearing from staffers about what they are working on, what is working, what isn’t, and what opportunities they would like to explore.

It’s the honor of my career to become the executive producer of 60 Minutes. I just shared the note below with the incredible staff and can’t wait to get started. pic.twitter.com/4PHmHJF3Bj

— Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) May 28, 2026

Prior to Bilton’s appointment, Simon served as executive producer since July 2025, taking the role after Bill Owen’s sudden exit from the program in April 2025, citing a loss of journalistic independence as the reason for his departure.

In the same note announcing Bilton’s hire, Weiss and Cibrowski addressed Simon’s departure, saying she has “dedicated more than three decades to 60 Minutes, and she has served the institution with enormous care, professionalism, and devotion.”

In a separate note to her 60 Minutes colleagues, Simon said, “It has been an immense privilege to lead this broadcast, and I could not be prouder of what we have built, fought for, and delivered together over the last year.”

Here’s Tanya Simon’s note to staff on her exit from 60 Minutes. pic.twitter.com/ICnYOoD2qu

— Ted Johnson (@tedstew) May 28, 2026

Reports have also indicated that, in addition to Simon’s departure, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, producer Guy Campanile, and correspondent Cecilia Vega have also been let go, and the network has officially parted ways with Sharyn Alfonsi.

Alfonsi’s departure was no surprise, as she was at the center of the controversy revolving the shelving of the 60 Minutes piece on the Trump administration deporting Venezuelan men to the maximum security prison CECOT in El Salvador back in December. 

At the time, she called out Weiss, and, in a statement on Wednesday, said her departure from 60 Minutes was a “deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”

In addition to those exits, Anderson Cooper departed from the program nearly two weeks ago.

Bilton’s appointment to lead 60 Minutes could rankle some within the network, as he is an outsider with minimal television experience tasked with steering the award-winning program into the future, which somewhat parallels Weiss’s appointment when she joined CBS News in October 2025.

All of this is happening as the news show on Wednesday night was the recipient of two Emmy Awards at the 47th annual News & Documentary Emmys ceremony. Scott Pelley’s feature on the War in Gaza took home the Emmy for Outstanding Hard News Report, and the news program won another Emmy for Outstanding Extended Breaking News Coverage on the California fires.

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