Nice to see two of my all favorite media people having an interesting discussion.
Good luck Donnie, and hi Joe1

Without the NFL lead-in in the winter, and the NCAA in the spring, 60 Minutes would be just be another news program like 20/20 and Dateline and 48 Hours in terms of ratings.

Remember 60 Minutes II or 60 Minutes Wednesday?

Neither do I

Impossible.

Nielsen Ad Intel says Colbert national TV revenue from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025 was $83.2 million US Dollars.

That fell to $63.5 million from June 1, 2025 to May 21, 2026

When the majority of your on air talent is between 60 and 84 years of age, it's hard to argue that changes aren't needed moving forward. 

The median age of the 60 Minutes of viewer is 65.  

Hardly the age group you want to build a future franchise on. A bit too early to see how the long game works out and the people who've been sitting in their anchor seats for 40+ years really shouldn't be complaining that it's tile
to start moving in a new direction. 

I watch Squatters on A&E pretty good show and yes, I hope laws do change because of these shows sad that we need these types of shows. The host of the show had a squatter living in his dead mothers house opening of the show in each EP they always have warning before the show starts.

Not sure which it could be ...

* “Squatters: Get the Fish Out of My House!” ?
* “Squatters: Get the Flea Out of My House!” ?
* “Squatters: Get the Fuzz Out of My House!” ?
* “Squatters: Get the Foil Out of My House!” ?
* “Squatters: Get the Flux Out of My House!” ?
* “Squatters: Get the Frog Out of My House!” ?
* “Squatters: Get the Fido Out of My House!” ?

Could be a series ...

Wayne, what's the source for that huge increase in the TV networks' late night ad revenues over the previous year that you referred to?

Mr. Rosenbaum has raised an extremely important problem: AI hallucinations are not merely technical errors, but breaches in the trust systems on which media, science, business, and public life depend.

The first emotional reaction to AI hallucinations is often rejection: perhaps the only safe response is not to use AI at all. That reaction is understandable. When AI fabricates a quote, a citation, a source, or a chain of evidence, it does not merely make a mistake. It damages trust.

But refusal cannot be the long-term answer. AI is already entering journalism, publishing, marketing, science, medicine, education, law, and corporate communication. The practical question is no longer whether AI will be used. It is how to prevent AI-generated errors from contaminating the systems that depend on credibility.

The better metaphor may be immunity.

A healthy body does not survive by denying the existence of viruses. It survives through detection, response, memory, and defense. Information systems now need something similar: an immune layer that can identify fabricated references, unverifiable claims, false quotations, and weak evidence before they are published, cited, or amplified.

That is why the next stage should not be anti-AI. It should be pro-verification.

One important example is the work of Professor Maxim Topaz of Columbia University, whose recent research helped expose the scale of fabricated citations in medical literature. His team has developed Citadel, an AI-focused verification tool that can be understood as a kind of immune filter for texts, claims, citations, and evidence.

This kind of work matters far beyond medicine. Media, publishing, marketing, public communication, education, and business will all need trustworthy verification layers as AI becomes part of everyday knowledge production.

The opportunity here is not only academic or technical. It is also institutional and commercial. People with experience in media, communication, reputation, markets, and scale — including voices like Mr. Rosenbaum, who are already bringing public attention to the issue — could play a decisive role in promoting such verification systems and turning them into practical infrastructure.

If this conversation reaches people who are interested in building that kind of AI-era immune system — publishers, media leaders, investors, platforms, agencies, or technology partners — this may be the moment to engage.

The future is probably not “AI or no AI.” It is AI plus responsibility, AI plus verification, AI plus trust architecture.

How I wish in Michigan our primary was early and not in Aug the GOP for governor's race seen so many ads from Perry Johnson who I don't like is flooding with ads seen a few for John James who has run for US Senate twice and lost both times, is a US Congressmen is the frontrunner has a double digit lead on the GOP side.

Mike Duggan dropped out 2 weeks ago which I thought was a dark horse to become governor in my opinion was running as an indpendent which was who I was going to vote for in Nov. 

M&Ms also did a sponorship deal with Temptation Island along with Pepsi when it moved to Netflix which The PTC made a huge stink about their last shot with signed a petition and largely donate to the cause, why they went out of business as not many were donating to them. And saying boycott M&M Mars & Pepsi that was an epic fail and went nowhere as well.  

When she first started Bari Weiss stated that she did not own a television set. Coming from the outside is not inherently bad. What is bad is when you lack respect and humility and the ability to learn from others who know the business you are attempting to lead. A more mature CEO would spend many months learning from those who made the operation great, and with that wisdom in hand make informed, measured decisions about the direction forward.

CBS Evening News probably did need significant changes since it has been in last place for a long time. But you don't need to "blow it up" as Ms. Weiss so eloquently put it. You learn, you respect, you adjust, you measure, you adjust again. Most important, you build a solid team of professionals who know more than you do, and many who grew up in the medium you are now trying to lead. This is how you make sustainable, significant change...not "blowing it up". 

Both the shut down of CBS Radio and "blowing up" 60 Minutes reeks of an immature and now sorely insecure leader. While you can argue CBS Radio on paper may have needed to go, anyone who spent any time in this business would realize at this juncture in CBS's history the last thing you need is to be shutting down an institution. Write off the loss as a marketing expense, because now you won't be able to write a check big enough to fix the stain you've created. 

The question David Ellison needs to ask Bari Weiss is: Why are you "blowing up" the #1 rated news show on television - and has been for two and a half decades. A show that makes us a lot of money, and is a standards-setter in the industry? Why don't you fix CBS Evening News first before you go messing with something that isn't broken?

It seems that even some "conservatives" agree with you, Leo:

www.youtube.com/shorts/10Kk3CNOUCc

In addition to being a leading media forecaster since the 1990s, I've also been an educator of future journalists for more than 50 years (starting in 1974). In academic papers I presented and published while still a full-time professor in the late 1980s, I lamented that the broadcasting industry needed to set up better standards when hiring journalists, as almost 50% of those hired nationally had no formal training in journalistic standards, comparing it other fields like engineering that did have set requirments for new hires (do you want a sociology major, with a math minor designing the next bridge to build?) Since then, cable news has probably increased the non-journalistic majors hired to about 25%, but broadcast television continued to be a hold out. That's no longer true with what Bari Weiss is trying to do at CBS. What do I tell my current students that I teach as an adjunct when they ask about the job market?  Find another major? Concurrently, due to this increase in non-journalistic majors being hired who don't understand (or just ignore) journalistic standards and ethics, we've seen a significant increase in defamation cases with large payouts (some of which should have gone to court if not for the financial ramifications, such as Trump vs. 60 Minutes). I'm very worried about the field of journalism going forward with non-professionals taking over leadership roles. 

Interesting points Wayne and Ed. Maybe television and radio need to use the print media model in which newspapers and magazines are either shuttering entirely in rural areas and/or going to a digital-only model in larger markets. Unfortunately in the newspaper industry, this has led to "news deserts" in many rural regions per Northwestern University's database, which would become even worse if television and radio stations left those communities. 

It would be helpful to see the actual names of these advertisers.

Wayne, as I keep saying, there are too many TV stations--and the same is true for radio--for all or even many to be viable business propositions in the face of declining audience time. When things were great--in the 1960s through to the early days of this century--hosts of stations sprang up--all trying to capitalize on four to five hours of daily viewing time for TV and about half that in listening time for radio, but even then many small market operators were losing money.

Now, with audiences down by about 50% due to the rise of CTV,  social media, videogames, increased mobile usage, etc. TV stations---especially in markets 75 and down--are in trouble. Many are being "saved" by retransmission fees and, periodically, by political spending, but the long term prognosis is dire. Worse, by relying very heavily on local news as well as syndicated game and talk shows,  the stations are reaching mostly 55+ audiences and there is no way to work around this by adopting supposedly better targeting schemes. The programming doesn't fit--where are the younger audiences?

Unfortunately, the stations keep seeking magical answers--like forcing Nielsen to go to "impressions" instead of showing ratings as rounded off percentages. And now they are being urged cto launch streaming services based on their local content. LOL on both of those ideas. 

One thing I do believe is that the stations--the groups, in particular--- don't realize how weak their sales efforts are with legions of small advertisers who are feeding their dollars into socoal media and other "digital" buys. The TV stations are not even selling what the've got, effectively to such marketers. 

Michael:  I respectfully suggest that this TAG report is somewhat flawed albeit insightful. 
So called "viewable impressions" per MRC have no persons-based real exposure measures.  They merely reflect 'content-rendered-counts' (on the glass, etc.), i.e., NO REAL OTS, nor LTS, nor contacts even if independently verified, a fundamental POP requirement. 
Per The Attention Council, "No attention, no outcomes!"  So whether programmatic or otherwise, evaluating media ROI on anything other than persons-based "qualified" attention metrics is surely spurious.  
At media agencies , CPM has always stood for "Completely Positively Mad".  Whether "True" or not, meaningful CPMs based on attention metrics can offer advertisers True insights into relative media efficiencies but even then only as long as they are combined with a myriad of other media qualities relative to the creative message and the brand campaign.    

Ray, nice article.  I have posted on MP many time about placing sweepstakes and contests on Sweepstakestoday.com. In 23 years, I would prefer to earn revenue from this form over programatic. I have several major brands who I work with directly on their sweeps and expect more in the near future. The bigger problem is some of the agencies don't want direct buying desk anymore and would prefer to spend $5,000 to $10,000 on a PR agency. They can work with me for a small faction of the price. I receive somewhere up to ten PR agencies per week asking for me to place their offers. When I ask for money, they say we don't have the budget. What a joke. I am sure thei clients would choke on that joke if they heard from me directly.

The point is, my search engine for sweeps is far superior to Google and the AI programs because we micro target on one category. I plan on building mutilple micro search engines based on all new programming so the Columbia Journalism Review and others can build their hand places ads.

Ai, of course, would not have made the spelling error I did in prior comment.
Well said!

Well sid. Well asked.
Good one Gord !

To add to it also, it's driving people to use the easiest Media to claim it works sort of like going back to the old last click attribution fiasco's

Add historically, I agree with you. But I point out that they should be paying even more attention to the various online/social media as those are an ever larger part of their budget and are less and less Transparent as the years go by. Further, there are more and more folks claiming they're proving they're doing a good job but merely confusing coincidence and causality. it gets into a lot of grading your own homework, which is making the problems deeper.

"It is a brand that is already well-known for its revelatory journalism that breaks news, exposes wrongdoing, widens public understanding and forces accountability from every institution and every center of power."
60 Minutes hasn't been any of those things for the past three or four decades.