CBS turmoil deepens as Cooper quits and Colbert defies lawyers

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David Ellison’s CBS is facing fresh turmoil after anchor Anderson Cooper announced his exit and host Stephen Colbert said the network stopped him from airing an interview with a Democratic politician amid concerns about political repercussions.

Cooper is leaving 60 Minutes after nearly two decades in the latest shake-up at CBS News following the appointment of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of the ailing television network.

Cooper’s departure and Colbert’s public airing of another dispute with CBS underscore the strains inside the network as its new owners seek to reshape the news organisations at a politically charged moment. With regulatory scrutiny rising and audiences splintering, decisions about what airs — and what does not — have become a test of CBS’s editorial independence under Ellison and Weiss.

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honours of my career,” Cooper said on Monday, adding he decided to leave because “I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible.”

Also on Monday night, Colbert slammed Donald Trump’s media regulator, Brendan Carr, and said CBS, which airs his Late Show, had prevented him from running an interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico.

“We were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said, adding CBS had discouraged him from mentioning it publicly.

According to Colbert, CBS was concerned about violating the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time rules” dating back to the 1930s, which require radio and broadcast TV programmes that bring politicians on during elections to also offer airtime to their opponents.

Carr last month issued a warning to TV talk shows, which had long been treated as exempt, that they must now comply with them.

Colbert posted the interview with Talarico on his YouTube channel, where the FCC rules do not apply. The FCC does not regulate streaming, podcasts or cable TV.

David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, last year bought Paramount, the owner of broadcast channel CBS and CBS News. He hired Weiss to turn around CBS News, which has suffered shrinking audiences in recent years.

Paramount in October acquired Weiss’s start-up The Free Press for about $150mn.

Weiss is a former New York Times journalist who left the paper and cultivated a following as an antidote to the mainstream media and “cancel culture”.

Ellison hired Weiss as part of an effort to reset CBS’s editorial direction. Her vocally pro-Israel stance and ability to attract a digitally savvy audience were factors that appealed to him, the FT previously reported.

But Weiss’s tenure has been tumultuous. In December, she delayed the airing of a 60 Minutes segment about an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration sent deported migrants, triggering a backlash in the newsroom.

Cooper, who will continue in his role as an anchor at Warner Bros Discovery’s CNN, is the latest senior journalist to exit CBS News in the Ellison and Weiss era.

Correspondent John Dickerson announced he was leaving in October after 16 years at the network, while anchor Maurice DuBois exited in December after more than 20 years.

Last week, CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey left the network with an internal memo that said under new leadership, producers were pressured to “self censor”.

Stories are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations”, she said.

Cooper’s exit from CBS also comes as Paramount battles Netflix to acquire WBD. Paramount could take control of CNN if it won.

CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Cooper’s exit.

CBS said The Late Show “was not prohibited” from broadcasting the interview, but “was provided legal guidance” that it could trigger the FCC rule and “presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled”.

CBS last year said it would end Colbert’s show after this season, citing financial reasons. Critics said Paramount was currying favour with Trump, a frequent target of the host on his show.