‘60 Minutes’ Meltdown & Hollywood’s YouTube Fever

Jun 4, 2026

Estée Lauder M&A Chatter, Immelt’s Substack Diaries, A $2.6B Auction Surprise

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s best new reporting. Here’s what you need to know… and stick around for the latest drama at 60 Minutes.

In the Room: Scott Pelley’s revolt against new 60 Minutes boss Nick Bilton ended with his firing—the latest shock in Bari Weiss’s eight-month tenure atop CBS News. Dylan Byers drops a mic into the four-hour deliberation over Pelley’s termination, and reveals the rising doubt at Paramount over whether Bari can handle the top job. [Read More]
What I’m Hearing: After Backrooms and Obsession dominated the box office, Hollywood is tempted to declare a new world order of YouTube-bred auteurs. Scott Mendelson spotlights the practical considerations for the town before the green lights start flashing. [Read More]
The Best & The Brightest: In California’s primaries, Democratic voters chose pragmatism over populism: Tom Steyer’s $200 million class crusade fizzled, Saikat Chakrabarti got Pelosi’d, and L.A. rejected the challenger to Karen Bass’s left. Peter Hamby parses why the normie libs won, and why Spencer Pratt is still in the running. [Read More]
Dry Powder: Nine years after his exit as C.E.O. of GE, Jeff Immelt is attempting to rewrite his legacy on Substack. Bill Cohan digs into the reputational rebrand and hears from former colleagues who are still nursing a grudge. [Read More]

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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Line Sheet: The Puig-ELC merger-that-wasn’t is in the rearview, and investors want Estée Lauder C.E.O. Stéphane de La Faverie to get on with his turnaround—starting with offloading underperforming brands. Rachel Strugatz offers fresh details on the M&A process before digging into a strange media subplot. [Read More]
Wall Power: The New York May auctions’ $2.5 billion in sales (double last year’s haul) was a confidence-restoring signal that big money has returned to the top of the art market. Marion Maneker crunches the numbers to reveal a slightly more nuanced story. [Inner Circle Exclusive]

Meanwhile, on the pods…

The Town: Matt is joined by Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old director of Backrooms, to discuss becoming the youngest filmmaker to open a movie at number one, his leap from YouTube to the big screen, and what he wants to do next. [Listen Here]

And now, a little more on the latest ‘60 Minutes’ imbroglio…

MEDIA

The 60 Minutes Adult Daycare Era

On Tuesday afternoon, Bari Weiss, CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, and newly installed 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton summoned veteran correspondent Scott Pelley to a meeting on the executive floor at West 57th Street. A day earlier, Pelley had used Bilton’s first staff meeting to take his new boss to task over his “slender qualifications,” demand answers about a string of recent high-profile firings, and accuse Weiss of “murdering” the storied newsmagazine. The Tuesday sit-down didn’t go any better: After Pelley repeatedly pressed Bari on the firings, Cibrowski showed him the door.

As Dylan chronicles, what followed was a four-hour deliberation—pizza, lawyers, and David Ellison included—over not just whether to fire Pelley, but how to keep him from casting himself as a martyr. Ultimately, they chose force over diplomacy, terminating him “for cause” in a letter that promptly found its way to every corner of the media universe. But the real damage is internal: Correspondents Bill Whitaker and Lesley Stahl have yet to decide whether to follow Pelley out, which would leave 60 Minutes with a single full-time correspondent just 100 days before its season premiere. How long before David & Co. send in a seasoned television executive to back Bari up?

Click here to read Dylan’s full story.

HOLLYWOOD

Scott Mendelson

Letters from the HollyTube Revolution

The breakout weekends for Backrooms and Obsession tell us something real about the origin of Hollywood’s next generation of talent—and something more complicated about its future.

WASHINGTON

Peter Hamby

Revenge of the Normie Libs

In California’s primaries, voters mostly chose pragmatism over progressivism: Tom Steyer’s class crusade fizzled, Saikat Chakrabarti got Pelosi’d, L.A. rejected its wannabe Mamdani, and Spencer Pratt—yes, Spencer Pratt—is still in the running.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

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WALL STREET

William D. Cohan

The Emancipation of Jeff Immelt

The disgraced-ish former GE executive has been on a journey of personal discovery to reinvent his legacy and perhaps make amends—even when the facts don’t fit his new narrative. But not everyone who worked with him is ready to forgive or forget.

FASHION

Rachel Strugatz

Martial Lauder

Now that ELC’s spring flirtation with Puig is over, investors would very much like it to get back to the long-promised turnaround. But finding buyers for its struggling brands is easier said than done. Plus, why the real narrative on the merger talks just won’t go away.

ART

Marion Maneker

May Auction Report: Rational Exuberance

Lured by the optimistic tailwinds from last fall’s Lauder auction, high-value supply came back to the art market in May, with sales totaling $2.5 billion. But the comeback may not be quite as roaring as it appears: Unimpressive hammer ratios reveal buyers’ willingness to pay, but not more than they have to.

HOLLYWOOD

Matthew Belloni

Backrooms Director Kane Parsons on Bursting into Hollywood, Internet Fandom & Old I.P.

Matt is joined by Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old director of Backrooms, to discuss becoming the youngest filmmaker to open a movie at number one at the box office, his experience transitioning from YouTube to the big screen, what he wants to do with his newfound success, how he uses the internet, and more. Matt finishes the show with opening weekend box office predictions for Scary Movie 6 and Masters of the Universe.

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