Winners and Losers: Zendaya and Scott Peeley’s Newfound Freedom

LOSER: 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley arguably deserved to be canned for that rant against his new 60 Minutes boss Nick Bilton. It doesn’t matter if your job is on Wall Street or at a Wendy’s. Try telling your manager at a staff meeting they have “slender qualifications” and “will never be welcomed here” and the person who hired them is “murdering” the company and see how well that goes for you. Reportedly earning $5 million per year, Pelley had f-you money and that’s essentially what he told the new boss.

But also: 60 Minutes has become a total mess, and that’s 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 of pressure to insert factual errors or political bias, and, now, bringing on print veteran and documentarian Bilton — a fine journalist, but somebody Ellison and Weiss had to know would spark more internal uproar as he lacks TV experience.

60 Minutes isn’t just a stopwatch logo and a magazine format. The show’s longtime correspondents are its trusted heart and connection with viewers, and their number has shrunk from seven to three in a few short months (and holdout Lesley Stahl surely can’t be thrilled and, at 84 years old, is a legend who doesn’t need anybody’s “here’s how we can improve your segment” notes).

Things 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.

Here’s the weirdest part. If there was one news program on TV that didn’t need a radical overhaul, it was 60 Minutes. The show is a Nielsen ratings monster — the most-watched news program for 52 years in a row — 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’s a bit surprising things have hit this level of golden goose-gutting chaos given Weiss’ podcast, Honestly, is often smart, modulated and thoughtful. 

CBS has noted the show’s ratings are up 9 percent since September (often due to the strength of NFL lead-ins), but that’s an argument against massively shaking up the show in the last couple months. It gives the industry little faith in Paramount’s new leadership amid the Warner Bros. merger. If you can’t find ways to gently modernize for the streaming age a perfectly formatted hit series that’s run like clockwork for decades without sending its newsroom screaming off the rails, how are you going to handle running essentially two studios?  

WINNER: Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and the rest of the Euphoria cast: The Euphoria season three finale was: “Surprise, the entire show is over.” This means one thing: The in-demand cast no longer has to worry about dutifully clearing their busy film schedules for more seasons of Euphoria. Still, it’s been a quality collapse for HBO’s Emmy-winning series whose second season was nominated for best drama and whose current season is best known for Cassie’s OnlyFans puppy-and-baby fetish content. But viewers also turned out in droves to watch how it ended (25 million viewers worldwide, according to HBO) and creator Sam Levinson deserves credit for an uncompromising finale that dealt with the show’s theme of addiction in the strongest possible terms. Zendaya’s mom didn’t sound thrilled with the result, however: “Definitely made me sad,” she posted. “And other emotions as well. But just gonna leave it right there.” 

LOSER: 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’ll let you know the results in days — maybe a few weeks — or whenever we get around to counting those ballots. What, you think this is a city with a budget of $15 billion or something?