CBS is in a deep crisis. Ratings are plummeting, employees are resigning at record speed, and management appears to be both divided and paralyzed. Now they are trying to regret one of the major layoffs – but the question is whether it is already too late.
The past few weeks have been extraordinary for CBS. Since Barry Weiss was put in charge of the channel, employees have fled in droves. Programs such as the CBS Evening News and the morning programs bleed viewers, and the atmosphere internally is described as toxic.
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Now, sources reveal that Nick Bilton – the new executive producer for 60 Minutes – is trying to persuade Dragan Mihailovich to come back. The problem? Mihailovich was one of those who was fired on the infamous “Black Thursday” just a few weeks ago.
“It’s a pretty strong indication that you’ve gone in the wrong direction when you’re trying to hire back a person you’ve just fired,” comments one industry observer.
Decades of experience disappear
Mihailovich is far from the only one who has left CBS. A longtime 60 Minutes producer, who had been with CBS News for over four decades, has resigned. Mike – who has been with CBS for 41 years, 34 of them on 60 Minutes – will also disappear for the rest of the month.
In a farewell note to colleagues, he wrote:
He barely lasted 34 days with Barry Weiss. That says everything about the management’s unpopularity.
Dissatisfaction is open – and public
Of the regular 60 Minutes correspondents from last season, only three continue: Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker and John Dickerson. In a joint statement, they emphasize that their decision must not be interpreted as a support for the existing power structure.
It’s not as aggressive a statement as Scott Pelley made – he was sacked almost immediately – but the fact that they feel comfortable saying publicly that they don’t support management is a bad sign for the future.
What exactly is the plan?
Commentators are now wondering if Barry Weiss was even deployed to save CBS – or to dismantle it. Several point to parallels to other political appointments, where rich people are placed in institutions they have zero faith in.
“I really thought this was the plan. That they were going to turn 60 Minutes into a memory, not a program,” says one commentator.
“But now they’re trying to hire people back?” What’s the point?
And while CBS is collapsing, others point out that the media industry in general is in free fall. Programs are inferior, more expensive – and people no longer have the patience to sit through ad interruptions or bad content.
A clearing in the dark?
While CBS is struggling, one thing is actually working: people are fleeing to alternative platforms – and some of them are actually free.
Maybe not everything has to be worse and more expensive. Perhaps the solution is to go new ways. But for CBS, the question is whether they will have time to turn around before it is too late.
Owner Paramount is also in the process of buying HBO and CNN is losing subscriptions in droves. They give away subscriptions for one dollar a month to get people back. How many subscriptions do they have to sell to recoup the money they lost by taking Steven Colbert off the broadcasts?
CBS is now called Trump TV. – Paramount is owned by Oracle owner Larry Ellison’s son.
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