Gayle King’s Future at CBS in Doubt as High-Priced Star’s ‘Woke’ Tastes, Showy Vacations Clash With New Owner’s Plans To Clean Up CBS News

The highest-paid star at CBS News, Gayle King, may be on her way out as the incoming new owner of the Tiffany Network prepares to reform the reliably liberal — and, more recently, very “woke” — news operation to better reflect the rest of the country outside of New York City. As the embattled network prepares for new management to take over, it is expected that there will be a series of cost-cutting measures. Skydance reportedly is seeking to slash $500 million in costs as it merges its much smaller operation with Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company. Further, Skydance made a written commitment to the FCC that, in order to get government approval for its acquisition, it will ensure that CBS News engages in unbiased news coverage.Last month, CBS announced that it is canceling late-night host Stephen Colbert’s show. The show was reportedly losing as much as $50 million a year, while the anti-Trump host was reportedly earning between $15 million and $20 million a year. While CBS insisted the cancellation was due solely to financial reasons, many of Mr. Colbert’s liberal supporters — including Senators Warren and Sanders, and fellow late-night comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart — called out Paramount and Skydance for muzzling one of television’s loudest anti-Trump voices.With the Skydance takeover expected to be finalized on August 7, there is speculation about who might be next on the chopping block. From left, Gayle King, Kris Jenner, and Oprah Winfrey on David Geffen’s Rising Sun yacht in July. InstagramOne employee whose future at the network could be endangered is Ms. King, who reportedly earns $10 million a year for her gig co-hosting “CBS Mornings.” Her contract extension is set to expire in May 2026. For years, morning shows have been major money-making operations for legacy broadcast networks, and even now, with their ratings a fraction of what they were a decade ago, the shows are still make a lot of money. CBS’s morning show, though perpetually lagging behind its competition at “Today” and “Good Morning America,” remains an important source of revenue for CBS. In recent months, though, the spiral of the ratings of “CBS Mornings” has accelerated and the show has struggled to bring in just 2 million viewers. Data from Nielsen also show that in the last three months, the program has lost between 20 percent and 30 percent of its viewers in the desirable 25- to 54-year-old demographic. One source at CBS attributed the bleeding to its “woke” content. An individual at the network, in what appears to be a continuation of the staff’s longstanding practice of anonymously sniping at colleagues through damaging leaks, told the New York Post that the current chief executive of CBS, George Cheeks, aggressively pushed diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, giving Ms. King and her producer, Shawna Thomas, leeway to run stories that alienated some of the audience.Gayle King has been mocked for her space trip. Instagram “The audience doesn’t want woke. It doesn’t like progressive and provocative bookings,” the source told the Post. Other sources said that the former chief executive of CBS News and Stations, Wendy McMahon, tasked Mr. Cheeks with turning around “CBS Mornings,” with a goal of making it more appealing to middle America. However, Ms. Thomas and others chose to ignore the directive and focused on content more geared toward an LGBTQ audience. As ratings for “CBS Mornings” have cratered, Ms. King has not wavered from her longstanding practice of vacationing and socializing very publicly with billionaires, often with her longtime best friend, Oprah Winfrey. Ms. King recently was a source of embarrassment to CBS News when she rocketed into “space” with the pop star Katy Perry, and Jeff Bezos’s new wife, Lauren Sanchez, taking a suborbital flight on one of Mr. Bezos’s Blue Origin rockets. From left, Priyanka Chopra, Salma Hayek, Kerry Washington, Kim Kardashian, Jessica Seinfeld, and Gayle King attend the Kering Foundation Third Annual Caring For Women Dinner at The Pool on September 9, 2024, in New York City. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for KeringAfter the flight, Ms. King compared herself to Alan Shepard as she vented about commentators criticizing the stunt, saying, “We actually duplicated the route that Alan Shepard did. … No one said, ‘He took that ride.’ It’s always referred to as a flight or a journey, so I feel that that’s a little disrespectful to what the mission was and the work that Blue Origin does.”“You never see a man, a male astronaut who’s going up in space, and they say, ‘Oh, he took a ride,’” she said.However, as Ms. King touted her adventure, anonymous staffers at CBS told the Daily Mail that they felt embarrassed by the stunt. Morning show stars are known for taking vast tranches of vacation, often gone on Fridays and vanishing for much of December and August, but Ms. King is in a category all her own. Besides casting herself as a brave astronaut and reportedly alienating her colleagues, Ms. King also spends a significant amount of time, very publicly, on ultra-exclusive vacations with oligarchs, scions of wealthy families, and celebrities at luxurious destinations. In the past year, Ms. King has taken at least five vacations.Gayle King during the Global Citizen NOW Summit, April 27, 2023, at New York. AP/Mary AltafferAt the end of June, Ms. King attended Mr. Bezos’s wedding at Venice — a star-studded event with a guest list that included Hollywood actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Sydney Sweeney, as well as Ms. Winfrey. After the wedding, Ms. King took another vacation on David Geffen’s $400 million yacht, the Rising Sun, in Spain with Ms. Winfrey and Kris Jenner.“Summer vacation in Spain. Great people, insane accommodations, beautiful hikes, and the most delicious food!” Ms. King wrote in an Instagram post about the Spain trip. The host also went on a vacation to a luxury resort in Mexico, Rosewood Mayakoba, around Thanksgiving. The CEO of Skydance Media, David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for CinemaConIn August 2024, she was seen sightseeing and shopping with Ms. Winfrey and Chelsea Clinton at Venice. And just weeks before the Venice trip, she was on vacation in Bermuda, where she posted about the vacation destination’s “pink sandy beaches … striking natural rock formations, sport fishing, golfing, and rich food.”In previous years, Ms. King and Ms. Winfrey have gone on vacations to Japan and Jordan. In 2021, Ms. Winfrey said she had taken Ms. King on every one of her vacations since the morning show co-host divorced her husband, William Bumpus, in 1993. CBS News and Skydance did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Gayle King’s Future at CBS in Doubt as High-Priced Star’s ‘Woke’ Tastes, Showy Vacations Clash With New Owner’s Plans To Clean Up CBS News

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