The newly installed, already controversial executive producer of 60 Minutes may not have any traditional broadcasting experience, but he does moonlight as a podcast bro—albeit one with a small audience.
Tech columnist Nick Bilton was tapped by CBS’s far more controversial editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, to sit at the helm of the network’s flagship newsmagazine show on Thursday—a move that sent shockwaves through CBS and beyond. The 49-year-old replaced Tanya Simon, a producer at the program for nearly 30 years, in one of Weiss’s boldest moves yet since coming aboard the network in October.
Weiss told The New York Times that she chose Bilton largely for his storytelling across multiple platforms, which apparently includes podcasting. Bilton, alongside Dick Costolo and Paul Kedrosky, hosts a weekly podcast innovatively titled The Nick, Dick, and Paul Show.
The tech-bro trio delves weekly into all things tech, startups, and, according to the bros themselves, “the future that’s rushing toward us.”
“With insider access, fascinating guests, and a healthy dose of irreverence, they’ll make you laugh while they explain how the world might end (and how we might still save it,” the podcast description reads.
That might sound appealing to Weiss, but she may not have checked the metrics.
There are 121 videos available on YouTube. To date, the most-watched episode, “Davos: Burning Man for the Rich,” has 714 views. An episode posted last week, “Why Don’t We Know What’s Happening Next?” has 239.
On Thursday, mere hours after news broke of the CBS shake-up, another episode of The Nick, Dick, and Paul Show dropped. As of publication, 24 people had watched it—two of whom are reporters from The Daily Beast. Meanwhile, 60 Minutes averaged some nine million viewers in its latest season—a promotion, indeed.
Thursday’s episode of Bilton’s show did not mention his sudden promotion or whether he would continue to host the iHeartMedia show. The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment.
In a note to his new, reportedly skeptical colleagues, Bilton wrote: “I am here because the world outside this building has changed a lot since this show was conceived—and we have to talk honestly about what that means.”
“Think back to September 1968, when the first episode of 60 aired. A gallon of gas was thirty-two cents. The first pocket calculator wouldn’t go on sale for another two-and-a-half years. If you needed money, you went to the bank, stood in line, and asked a human being for it. Long distance calls were billed by the minute and you thought twice before making one,” he wrote.
“Every part of how we lived back then has been transformed since then,” he observed. “The cars, the phones, the music, the movies, the medicine, the money, the way news gets made and the way news gets consumed. The phone you are reading this on is more powerful than every computer that existed on the planet in 1968 combined.”
He said the modern-day audience is now “stalked by algorithms,” which have “figured out that anger is the only way to make sure they come back day after day after day,” and claimed, “they have lost faith in almost every institution that used to hold the country together.”
It’s not clear what Bilton is going to do to bridge the improbable gap he describes. In interviews with The Times and New York Magazine, the tech bro did not elaborate.
He did, however, shrug off any concerns over his experience—or lack thereof.
“Do I need to know which button to press to make sure the show goes on air on a Sunday night? No. If there are questions I don’t have the answers to, there is a building full of people who can answer them,” Bilton told New York.
It’s not clear how helpful the staff will be after Weiss fired Simon, along with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
“And I also bring this understanding of media and technology that spans pretty much every form of storytelling there is, with the exception of comic books, I guess. And so it feels to me like the absolute perfect job and honestly the honor of my career to do it.”
In October, billionaire David Ellison’s Skydance—backed by his father, Oracle founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison—acquired Weiss’s blog, The Free Press, for $150 million. Weiss was subsequently installed as head of CBS News.
