TVSquad

If you're a Howard fan, you've likely either caught last night's episode of 60 Minutes, recorded it to your DVR or are grabbing it via torrent. But if you're interested in grabbing just the Howard Stern piece itself, CBS is offering them for free on their website in both Windows Media and RealPlayer formats.

[via Orbitcast]

60 Minutes might actually be closer to sixty minutes long this Sunday. The iconic news program will have only one sponsor, Philips Electronics. Two brief ads from Philps, along with spots for CBS shows and ads from local markets will result in about six and a half minutes of ad time, or about half of what the show usually utilizes, providing "more content and less clutter," according to executive producer Jeff Fagen. Hopefully this will also give Andy Rooney more time to complain about herbal shampoo.

Mike Wallace has been one of the main faces - some would say the main face, along with Andy Rooney - of 60 Minutes since its debut in 1968, but the 87-year-old is finally going to cut back on the amount of stories that he does on the show (he'll do about 5 or 6 stories this year).

He'll also have a different position in the opening. For years he's been saying "I'm Mike Wallace" at the start, but now he'll say "I'm Lesley Stahl" instead. Just kidding. He'll be at the end of the opening now, doing the "those stories and Andy Rooney" line. Ed Bradley will replace Wallace in the first position, and Dan Rather will be coming over from over from the cancelled 60 Minutes II. 

[via Romenesko]

Writer and 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney (who I think is a great writer and has been dumped on by has-been comedians for far too long) testified in court yesterday during a fraud trial involving a speakers bureau that owes numerous celebrities (including Magic Johnson, Titanic researcher Robert Ballard, and astronaut Scott Carpenter) thousands of dollars. It's great to see that Rooney is still Rooney, even when he's on the witness stand, questioning the wording of the oath (!) and answering the defense lawyer's question of how he found the defendent's address by saying "the phone book" when hunting him down to collect his own owed fees. He eventually got them after such persistence..   

 It seems some people are up in arms that 60 Minutes II was one of this years George Foster Peabody Award winners, a show that was recently under lots of scrutiny over a story based on falsified documents. Though the award wasn't for the bogus story, the same producer (who was later fired from CBS) was involved. The Daily Show won its second Peabody for its election coverage last year, while HBO won three awards including one for Deadwood.

The Duke-Mississippi State game running into primetime gave CBS the nightly ratings with the game's 16.4 million viewers. That crowd stuck around for “60 Minutes” drawing 16.3 million viewers and “Cold Case” with 16.5 million. Even “Spring Break Shark Attack” drew 11.5 million idiots...I mean viewers. Over at ABC a rerun of “Desperate Housewives” attracted 13.2 million slowpokes and “Boston Legal” finished with 11.4 million. Wait a second, a new “Boston Legal” had less viewers than “Spring Break Shark Attack?” Travesty. “The Contender” is slowly improving to 7.8 million viewers. But that's still not good considering “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” drew 12.3 million and “Crossing Jordan” drew 11.2 million. “The Simpsons” are flat these days with only 8.6 million viewers and “Arrested Development” is doing poorly as well with 5.9 million.