60 Minutes More

By Richard Zoglin

In a panel discussion on TV newsmagazines a few weeks ago, 60 Minutes founder and executive producer Don Hewitt took a defiant stand--against them. Rather than filling a need for more news programming, he argued, these shows are created mainly to fill gaps in the network schedule. Said he: "Behind every newsmagazine"--with a couple of exceptions, notably one show with a ticking stopwatch--"there's a failed sitcom."

TV has a lot of failing sitcoms these days, and that's one reason Dateline NBC's Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips, now on five nights a week, seem to have become the official hosts of the NBC television network. Yet 60 Minutes, after 30 years still the highest-rated network magazine show, has managed to remain largely above this fray. It steers away (most of the time) from the tabloid subjects and celebrity interviews that its rivals use to goose ratings; it actually pays attention to foreign news once in a while; and it is still, quaintly, on the air only once a week.

That is about to change. Most likely in January, the show that was too good to clone will, at long last, produce an offspring. The second edition of 60 Minutes, expected to air on Tuesday or Wednesday night, has been created despite the very public opposition of Hewitt (who called it "a terrible idea") and most of his veteran 60 Minutes colleagues. He has now grudgingly acceded to what was probably an inevitability all along, agreeing to serve as a consultant on the new show, but only, he says, "when it doesn't take me away from the one and only, true and honest 60 Minutes."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of your firstborn child. But CBS executives are trying hard to assure doubters that 60 Minutes Jr. will be a credit to its not-so-proud parent. The new show's executive producer is Jeffrey Fager, who spent five years as a producer for 60 Minutes and has been a hard-news champion as executive producer of the CBS Evening News since 1996. The new show will have an entirely separate staff, which means it won't divert resources from Hewitt's operation; yet more than half its producers have worked at 60 Minutes, which presumably means the standards (as well as the look and format) will be carried on.

Of course, the key to 60 Minutes' success has been its star correspondents, and 60 Minutes II has reached out for some big names as well. In one casting coup, the show is about to sign up Charlie Rose, the PBS talk-show host, to do 10 or 12 pieces a year. Rose will continue as host on his own show, though he will give up some producing chores so that he can devote more time to his new gig. The network has coaxed Evening News anchor Dan Rather to be an occasional contributor as well (he will continue to anchor both the Evening News and the weekly 48 Hours). CBS has also pursued ABC's Chris Wallace, son of 60 Minutes pioneer Mike, though it now appears unlikely that ABC will let him out of his contract. Current CBS correspondents Bob Simon and Vicki Mabrey are also expected to join the team. (A notable candidate left out of the mix: Bryant Gumbel, whose magazine show, Public Eye, flopped last season.) Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and the other 60 Minutes vets will regularly appear on the new show as well, doing updates of "classic" 60 Minutes stories.

Hewitt and his confreres ended their campaign against the new show after they were persuaded, as CBS News president Andrew Heyward puts it, that "the train was going to leave the station, and they better not be tied to the tracks." Heyward vows that the new show will be "committed to their values." And Fager takes pains to separate 60 Minutes II from the time-filling rivals that Hewitt railed against. "This is an opportunity to give people more high-quality broadcast journalism," Fager says. "Isn't that a good thing?"

In theory, yes. But many questions remain. Thrown into tough ratings competition outside its Sunday-night haven, won't 60 Minutes II have to scramble for the same kinds of promotable stories that Dateline and 20/20 go after? "I would not like to see anything with the 60 Minutes name involved in the game of sweeps-week roulette," warns Hewitt. Will part-time stars like Rose and Rather turn out to be mere window dressing? And with only one of the four correspondents picked so far under 55 years of age (Mabrey is 42), CBS isn't exactly solving one rap against 60 Minutes: its older-skewing audience. In the cold, cruel Nielsen world, even a high-minded newsmagazine has to watch its back. It could be replaced by sitcoms.