It sounds as if CBS is trying to build an audience for 60 Minutes beyond televisions in assisted living facilities:
NEW YORK – From the time “60 Minutesâ€? began in 1968, the first face viewers saw after the ticking stopwatch has been Mike Wallace’s — until now.
Ed Bradley will replace Wallace in that prominent position when “60 Minutes� begins its new season on Sunday, a further indication of a changing of the guard at television’s first and still most popular newsmagazine.
With Dan Rather rejoining “60 Minutes� and the show absorbing personnel from the canceled “60 Minutes II,� there will be nine correspondents competing for space each week on a broadcast that generally runs three stories.
Dan Rather? That should really help build the audience…MORE:
Instead of his booming voice announcing, “I’m Mike Wallace,� at the beginning of each broadcast, Wallace will instead be at the end of the opening segment, saying “these stories and Andy Rooney, tonight on ‘60 Minutes.�’
It’s a change that would be little noted on most broadcasts. But the opening is serious business at “60 Minutes,� and Wallace is the iconic figure the show has long been identified with.
Wallace is expected to have a more limited role on the show, with five or six stories this season, said Jeff Fager, “60 Minutes� executive producer.
“In some ways it fits even better with what his role is on the broadcast these days,� Fager said. “Mike still has it. He still pulls it off. Sometimes he can’t remember what he had for breakfast but he can still pin someone down on an interview.�
Wallace, 87, was traveling in Europe on a story Wednesday and could not immediately be reached, his assistant said.
“Mike’s been saying he’s going to cut back for the last five years and he hasn’t really done it,� Kroft said. “I think Mike will be in there pitching and will be going for the big interviews.�
Indeed, Wallace has been a remarkable journalistic and infoentertainment success story and, in recent years, a genuine inspiration for seniors as the country’s senior population continues active and at their jobs for longer periods of time. (Part of this is due to the economy as well, forcing some seniors back to work — particularly if they owned Enron stock…).
But TV shows can show their age and if the age for active seniors is getting older and older, Bradley is a relatively younger face.
But if it doesn’t work out with Bradley over the long run, perhaps Wallace can be invited back to his old 60 Minutes anchor job 10 years from now…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.