Reasoner, who passed away in 1991, left CBS in 1970 to pursue a news anchoring position at ABC but later returned to 60 Minutes, in 1978, until his death. Wallace and Morley Safer, who started in 1970, are still featured reporters as well as Ed Bradley (who joined the team in 1981) and newcomers Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft. 60 Minutes would not be the same without the weekly commentary of Andy Rooney. Rooney started making a regular appearance in 1978 offering humorous, sometimes controversial annotations about everyday life. A well known prime time TV news anchor who did much of his best work at 60 Minutes is Dan Rather. When Rather joined the other prestigious journalists he had a reputation as a tough, aggressive reporter; in other words, he fit in perfectly. Rather left in 1981 to takeover The CBS Evening News, leaving with him a hard-nosed investigator who would do whatever it took to capture the whole story. All of these factors combined to form a one-of-a-kind TV newsmagazine with solid ratings; clones were destined to follow. Following in the wake of success, many spin-offs were created in an attempt to grab a piece of the action. There were many reasons for following the suite of 60 Minutes and not many reasons not to. The biggest incentive (in the eyes of the other network executives) for striving to reproduce 60 Minutes was the substantial amount of revenue created by this program. 60 Minutes requires a remarkably less amount of money to produce than a situation comedy. And because the CBS network owns the show, these were earnings that went straight to the corporation. 60 Minutes has turned out to be quite a goldmine for CBS because the program has not only brought in the highest profit of any other show in history, but most of all their other shows combined. It comes as no surprise that other networks dived into the newsmagazine business. Some of the more notable programs to cash in on the new format for broadcasting news include Prime Time Live, 20/20, and Entertainment Tonight.
