Longtime CBS News and 60 MINUTES executive Patti Hassler will launch "60 MINUTES Global," a new initiative aimed at franchising America's number one news magazine worldwide and extending its content to more digital platforms, it was announced today by Jeff Fager, executive producer, 60 MINUTES.

Hassler, who was executive editor of 60 MINUTES, retains that title in the new unit.  Bill Owens, formerly senior broadcast producer for 60 MINUTES, becomes the new executive editor of 60 MINUTES.

60 MINUTES Global plans to offer the 60 MINUTES brand of journalistic excellence in countries that want to produce their own local version. It will also focus on new digital enterprises and oversee the current range of content produced by 60 MINUTES for cable networks and the internet, including 60 MINUTES on Yahoo.

"Patti, with almost 30 years at the broadcast, knows 60 MINUTES better than anyone," said Fager.  "She has excelled at every level.  Her talents and her experience make her the perfect person for this important position."   Of Owens' promotion, Fager said, "Bill is a great reporter with extensive experience covering every kind of story in his many years at CBS News and here at 60 MINUTES.  He will be a strong executive editor -- only the fourth person to hold the job in 40 years of 60 MINUTES."

Hassler has spent most of her 30 years at CBS News at 60 MINUTES, first at the original broadcast, where she started her career in 1978 and went on to produce nearly 70 stories for Harry Reasoner and Morley Safer. She helped launch 60 MINUTES II as its senior producer in August 1998 and was named its executive editor in December 1999.  In 2004, she became executive editor of 60 MINUTES.

Between her roles at the 60 MINUTES franchise, Hassler served as an executive producer at CBS News Productions (1996-98), overseeing documentaries produced for The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel, as well as a 13-part series on the history of country music for The Nashville Network, among other projects.  She also was responsible for CBS News Productions' contribution to "Biography: This Week" for the A&E Television Network and, in August 1996, was named director of programming for the unit.  

Owens had been senior broadcast producer of 60 MINUTES since June 2007.  He joined the program from the CBS EVENING NEWS, where he was that broadcast's senior broadcast producer since January 2006.  Before that, Owens produced segments for correspondent Scott Pelley, first for 60 MINUTES II (2000-03) and then for 60 MINUTES (2003-06).

He was CBS News' White House producer (1996-2000), working with Pelley, Bill Plante and Rita Braver.  Prior to that, he was a producer for the CBS EVENING NEWS in Washington, D.C. (1994-96).  Owens was the anchor producer for Paula Zahn and Harry Smith (1993-94) and the coordinating producer for "CBS This Morning" (1991-93) in New York.  He also served as a national desk assignment editor and field producer (1990-91), as well as a desk assistant for CBS News and for WCBS-TV, the CBS Owned station in New York (1988-90).  He began his journalism career in 1988 as a summer intern for CBS News working at the national political conventions in Atlanta and New Orleans.

60 MINUTES is the most successful broadcast in the history of television whose commitment to journalistic excellence still attracts the largest news audience. 60 MINUTES made the weekly top-10 most watched programs list 16 out of 33 weeks this past season, finishing as the number-one news program, more than five million viewers ahead of its nearest news magazine competition. 60 MINUTES celebrates its 40th anniversary on September 24, 2008.