Variety: ‘CBS Evening News’ Executive Producer Guy Campanile to Return to ’60 Minutes’

Story from Variety:

Guy Campanile, a longtime “60 Minutes” producer who was tasked with managing a significant overhaul of the venerable “CBS Evening News,” is returning to his old stomping grounds.

Campanile is expected to take up duties at “60 Minutes” in days to come, according to a person familiar with the matter, leaving CBS News to assign a new executive to run its evening newscast. One potential candidate is said to be Kim Harvey, a veteran producer who has worked for CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, along with CBS News.

CBS News declined to make executives available for comment. Campanile’s projected change in duties was previously reported by The New York Times.

Campanile’s move would come just as “60 Minutes” staffers typically return from summer break to get various stories that have been in the works ready for broadcast. Campanile saw the “Evening News” job as an honor, according to the person familiar with the situation.

“CBS Evening News” has grappled in recent months with a downturn in viewership following a significant format overhaul that traded in a single anchor for a duo and an emphasis on enterprise and feature reporting rather than solely on the hard news of the day. The shake-up was aimed at pushing the program out of its long-held third-place status opposite NBC’s “Nightly News,” which just changed anchors for the first time in a decade, and ABC’s “World News Tonight,” which is the most-watched evening-news broadcast in the U.S.

“CBS Evening News” remains one of the best-known offerings from the Paramount Global network, with a storied history that reaches back to Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite. This version of the show gives more of a spotlight to the reporters around the globe who help put it together — even letting them surface before commercial breaks to tell viewers to stay tuned for their coming stories. Many stories have CBS News reporters holding forth from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri or spots from around the globe, rather than well-worn perches in front of the White House or the U.S. Capitol.

The shift was being supervised in part by Bill Owens, the former executive producer of “60 Minutes,” who left CBS News in April, citing interference from corporate owner Paramount Global as it sought to move forward with a sale to Skydance Media despite a lawsuit from President Donald Trump and an FCC probe, both of which observers felt lacked merit.

Changes at “CBS Evening News” have been expected — and not just due to the ratings. A new president, Tom Cibrowski, was brought to the division in February of this year. The program, according to two people familiar with CBS News, is seen as being on a to-do list for the division’s relatively new arrival.