{"id":623207,"date":"2026-06-05T19:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/623207\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T19:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:34:09","slug":"winners-and-losers-zendaya-and-scott-peeleys-newfound-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/623207\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners and Losers: Zendaya and Scott Peeley’s Newfound Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLOSER: 60 Minutes<\/a>: Scott Pelley<\/a> arguably deserved to be canned for that rant against<\/a> his new 60 Minutes boss Nick Bilton. It doesn\u2019t matter if your job is on Wall Street or at a Wendy\u2019s. Try telling your manager at a staff meeting they have \u201cslender qualifications\u201d and \u201cwill never be welcomed here\u201d and the person who hired them is \u201cmurdering\u201d the company and see how well that goes for you. Reportedly earning $5 million per year, Pelley had f-you money and that\u2019s essentially what he told his new boss.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut also: 60 Minutes has become a total mess<\/a>, and that\u2019s squarely on Paramount chief David Ellison and CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss. Leaks, drama, quitting, firings, pulling a topical segment about the Trump administration at the last minute, allegations<\/a> of pressure to insert factual errors or political bias, and, now, bringing on print veteran and documentarian Bilton \u2014 a fine journalist, but somebody Ellison and Weiss had to know would spark internal uproar as he lacks TV experience.<\/p>\n

\n\t60 Minutes isn\u2019t just a stopwatch logo and a magazine format. The show\u2019s longtime correspondents are its trusted heart and connection with viewers, and their number has shrunk from seven to three in a few short months. The remainders \u2014 Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim \u2014 have been successfully corralled<\/a>, for now, declaring in a statement Friday that they plan to remain with the show, but noted in a joint statement: \u201cWe feared that our [staying] might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically not the case. Here\u2019s why we\u2019re are staying: We don\u2019t want to see\u00a060 Minutes\u00a0die.\u201d Which isn\u2019t exactly a \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together\u201d vote of confidence in the current leadership, but more like saying: You guys are messing things up, and, without us, you\u2019re even more screwed. <\/p>\n

\n\tThings are so bad that when a rumor made the rounds this week that Paramount was looking to hire Joe Rogan for 60 Minutes, it was actually easier to believe the Paramount brass would try to get the podcaster than it was to believe that Rogan would ever want the job.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the weirdest part. If there was one news program on TV that didn\u2019t need a radical overhaul, it was 60 Minutes. The show is a Nielsen ratings monster \u2014 the most-watched news program for 52 years in a row<\/a> \u2014 that generates nearly $70 million per year in advertising. Part of that ad success is because the show is so trusted and respected. Brand perception matters. It\u2019s a bit surprising things have hit this level of golden goose-gutting chaos given Weiss\u2019 podcast, Honestly, is often smart, modulated and thoughtful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS has defensively noted the show\u2019s ratings are up 9 percent since September (often due to the strength of NFL lead-ins), but that\u2019s actually an argument against massively shaking up the show over the last couple months. It gives the industry little faith in Paramount\u2019s new leadership amid the Warner Bros. merger. If you can\u2019t find ways to gently modernize for the streaming age a perfectly formatted hit series that\u2019s run like clockwork for decades without sending its newsroom screaming off the rails, how are you going to handle running essentially two studios? \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWINNER: Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and the rest of the Euphoria<\/a> cast: The Euphoria season three finale was: \u201cSurprise, the entire show is over.\u201d This means the in-demand cast no longer has to worry about dutifully clearing their busy film schedules for more seasons of Euphoria. Still, it\u2019s been a quality collapse for HBO\u2019s Emmy-winning series whose second season was nominated for best drama and whose current season is best known for Cassie\u2019s OnlyFans puppy-and-baby fetish content. Viewers turned out in droves to watch how it ended (25 million viewers worldwide, according to HBO), however, and creator Sam Levinson deserves credit for an uncompromising finale<\/a> that dealt with the show\u2019s theme of addiction in the strongest possible terms. Zendaya\u2019s mom didn\u2019t sound thrilled with the result, though: \u201cDefinitely made me sad,\u201d she posted. \u201cAnd other emotions as well. But just gonna leave it right there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLOSER: The Los Angeles Electoral Process. We typically know within hours of polls closing who is the next U.S. president as poll workers tally up to 170 million votes nationwide. But figuring out which two candidates will advance during an L.A. mayoral primary? Whoa-whoa-whoa, what do you think this is, the space age? Have a seat in a folding chair in the waiting room by the broken snack machine, and we\u2019ll let you know the results in days \u2014 maybe a few weeks \u2014 or whenever we get around to counting all the ballots. As of Friday, the city couldn\u2019t even provide<\/a> an estimate of the number of ballots remaining. What, you think this is a city with a budget of $15 billion or something?<\/p>\n

\n\tLast Week\u2019s Column: Winners and Losers: Spielberg\u2019s UFO Clash and Tom Hardy\u2019s Trailer Tantrums<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOSER: 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley arguably deserved to be canned for that rant against his new 60 Minutes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[129056,6491,96,13494,196339,211496,199218,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-623207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-60-minutes","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-euphoria","tag-hollywood-winners-and-losers","tag-scott-pelley","tag-spencer-pratt","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}