The venerable CBS news show celebrated Mike Wallace’s departure by inking a deal to place expanded content from “60 Minutes” on Yahoo after the broadcast.
Out with the old, in with the new, perhaps. Not long after Wallace’s retirement, CBS and Yahoo announced a deal that will increase the breadth and depth of coverage of issues brought up on 60 Minutes.
The agreement, worked out by CBS News & Sports president Sean McManus and the head of Yahoo’s Media Group, Lloyd Braun, takes effect this fall when 60 Minutes begins its 39th season on the air. They do plan to make some content available earlier, their statement noted:
A special preview of the free video programming on Yahoo! will be available starting Sunday, March 26, and will feature a rare interview with Tiger Woods. When the service launches, users will have access to 60 Minutes content throughout Yahoo!, including on the News, Sports and Entertainment sites, as well as on a newly created “microsite” on Yahoo! dedicated to 60 MINUTES content.
Each week following the Sunday night broadcast of the news magazine, the microsite will be updated with two news packages. One package will expand on a segment featured that week on the television broadcast of 60 MINUTES. The second will be based on a topical news theme for that particular week. Both offerings will include never-before-seen 60 MINUTES video footage, as well as interactive elements such as maps, a reporter’s notebook, blogs and photo galleries. Most packages will be a combination of new video footage, and video content pulled from the rich archives of 60 MINUTES.
In the statement, both Braun and McManus praised the initiative. CBS has been very aggressive in embracing the Internet, in many ways as the first place for news coverage and reporting.
About 14 million viewers tune in to 60 Minutes each week. Yahoo’s userbase of 126 million monthly US users (per comScore Media Metrix, Jan. ’06) offers a lot of potential viewership. 60 Minutes does tend to have an older audience, and the expanded content on Yahoo may be of more appeal to that older demographic.
Yahoo may want to tweak its advertising for that audience. Not everyone over the age of 30 wants to see mortgage refinance and insurance ads over and over again.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
