‘60 Minutes’ Chastises Its Corporate Parent in Unusual On-Air Rebuke

The show’s top producer abruptly said last week he was quitting. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent Scott Pelley told viewers.

Scott Pelley, wearing a tie and suit, sitting behind a desk in a TV studio. In his remarks on Sunday night’s telecast, Scott Pelley presented Bill Owens’s decision to resign as an effort to protect “60 Minutes” from further interference.Credit…John Paul Filo/CBS, via Associated Press

In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.

“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

A spokesman for Paramount had no immediate comment, and has previously declined to comment on Mr. Owens’s departure.

Mr. Owens stunned the show’s staff on Tuesday when he said he would leave the highest-rated program in television news over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’s corporate parent, saying, “It’s clear the company is done with me.”

60 Minutes' calls out ownership on air - POLITICO

Mr. Owens’s comments were widely reported in the press last week. The show’s decision to repeat those grievances on-air may have exposed viewers to the serious tensions between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers for the first time.

Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to a studio run by the son of Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire.

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Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016.

Benjamin Mullin reports on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at benjamin.mullin@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on April 29, 2025, Section B, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: On-Air Rebuke For Paramount By ‘60 Minutes’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: U.S. Politics, CBS News, Paramount, Donald Trump, Shari Redstone