New “60 Minutes” Starts This Sunday Riding the Ratings Coattails of NFL Games: Will Viewers Stick with Much Changed Show?

“60 Minutes” is coming back this Sunday.

But it won’t be recognizable in a lot of ways. Four long time correspondents are gone — Scott Pelley, Anderson Cooper, Cecilia Vega, and Sharyn Alfonsi.

There are a lot of new faces.

This is all thanks to CBS News chief Bari Weiss firing them all, and bringing in a new executive producer. (She also fired the EP, Tanya Simon.) It’s all part of the new conservative ownership of CBS under David Ellison and his billionaire father, Larry.

“60 Minutes” has endured horrific publicity this last six months. The public is aware of it. Ratings are down for CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings. Will that affect this 58 year old show?

It’s all about ratings, which will be closely watched Sunday. In the fall, “60 Minutes” gets a boost from the NFL game that bleeds right into. This Sunday, the NFL kicks off with two games — the Cardinals vs. the Chargers, and the Packers vs. the Vikings.

Last year, the first episode of “60 Minutes” benefited from the NFL and scored 10 million viewers. After that, the ratings went down and up and down again.The season average was 7.7 million. The big question will be if viewers stay with the hour or turn away. We already know that Jon Wertheim has a football segment. Norah O’Donnell has an exclusive interview with the fighter pilot who was shot down over Iran last April. The third segment hasn’t been announced yet. 

Stay tuned…