Knives Out for Gayle King at CBS News After Embarrassing Spaceflight and Sinking Ratings: News Star’s $10 Million Salary on Chopping Block

In the wake of the forced ousters of the CBS News chief, Wendy McMahon, and the “60 Minutes” producer, Bill Owens, the embattled staffers at the Tiffany Network are reportedly turning on some of their most famous talent, especially a controversial and handsomely paid morning star, Gayle King.Ms. McMahon was forced out (or “fired,” as Puck’s Dylan Byers put it) after months of tensions with the nonexecutive chairwoman of Paramount Global, Shari Redstone. Ms. McMahon opposed settling President Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS — whose parent company is Paramount — over its selective editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 interview with “60 Minutes” and had reportedly set a “red line” on the question of an apology. Executives at Paramount reportedly believe settling the lawsuit — which could cost as much as $75 million — is the way to ensure that the Federal Communications Commission approves the company’s planned merger with Skydance Media, which the Trump administration is holding up. If the deal is approved, it would be worth billions of dollars, give Ms. Redstone’s family a multimillion-dollar payout, and provide a much-needed cash infusion to Paramount. But the merger, which would likely save one of the last major studios in Hollywood, is expected to lead to many job cuts. Insiders at beleaguered CBS News — long “the sick man” of network news — which has seen the ratings for its money-making morning show “CBS Mornings” and its “Evening News” plummet, are bracing for cuts of up to $500 million and likely layoffs. The expected cuts are reportedly stirring up “resentment” in the news division, according to the Daily Mail.Terminated: Wendy McMahon, CEO of CBS News, is exiting Paramount. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File“Fed-up sources observed that there was growing resentment towards legendary CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King, who is reportedly facing a fight to have her $10 million contract renewed when it ends in September,” the Daily Mail reports.A staffer at “60 Minutes” told the outlet that the network’s decision to send Ms. King on an all-female suborbital flight on one of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rockets in April, which was widely ridiculed, is not helping her case at the network. “People don’t want to say it out loud in the office but the entire space debacle really hurt us,” the staffer said. “Gayle being part of that is not a good look for our brand.”The staffer added, “I think a lot of people resent Gayle for that. I know I do.”CBS News has been denounced by President Trump for its editing of the ’60 Minutes’ Kamala Harris interview. Via CBS NewsMeanwhile, a producer of the “CBS Mornings” said the stunt created a sense of embarrassment for people working at CBS News, saying, “I almost feel like apologizing when I tell people where I work. I hate it here.”After her brief flight, in which the female astronauts wore matching blue spacesuits designed by a haute couture designer, Monse, Ms. King appeared to compare herself to the first American astronaut to fly in space, Alan Shepard, as she pushed back on the mockery of 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. Ahead of the trip, “CBS Mornings” aired what it called a “sendoff” video for Ms. King. It featured messages from celebrities such as actor Tom Hanks, who told her to “not unbuckle until they say you can unbuckle.”The new format of the ‘CBS Evening News’ is failing to connect with viewers. Via CBS NewsA “Star Trek” star, William Shatner, also told her to “embrace the journey.” Meanwhile, science educator Bill Nye, a paid CBS contributor, said that she would be an “astronaut” and that he wished her a “safe journey and the joy of discovery.”Ms. King, a former local news anchor who became famous for being Oprah Winfrey’s best friend, is known for currying favor with powerful, liberal, and Democratic celebrities, and joining them on yacht vacations and exclusive parties. This conduct has long flown in the face of her job at a news organization, but executives have looked the other way.Her spaceflight — with the kind of celebrity friends she’s known for, such as singer Katy Perry and Mr. Bezos’s wife, Lauren Sanchez — came as “CBS Mornings” has seen its ratings plummet, a troubling sign for CBS as morning shows have historically been a major money-makers for broadcasters (“CBS Mornings” makes much more money than “60 Minutes”). It appears the trip provided a brief boost for the morning program. The week the flight occurred, ABC’s “Good Morning America” averaged 2.65 million total viewers. NBC’s “Today” came in second place with 2.48 million total viewers. And “CBS Mornings” came in third place with 2.45 million viewers.However, a month later, the apparent boost for the morning show looks like it was short-lived. During the week of May 12, “CBS Mornings” averaged 1.9 million viewers. Gayle King has been mocked her her space trip. Instagram ABC and NBC also saw slumps for their morning shows, but they still averaged closer to 2.5 million viewers. It should be noted that audiences for the once-mighty morning shows are all way down, dropping by almost 50 percent over the last decade. The younger (“demo”) audience has dropped even more. Among 25- to 54-year-olds, “Good Morning America” had 425,000 viewers, “Today” had 579,000, and “CBS Mornings” had 310,000 during the week of May 12. For a mass-market, broadcast TV channel, these are catastrophically bad numbers.Ms. King’s contract is up in September, according to the New York Post. She had signed only a one-year extension last year because she made too much money for CBS to make a longer-term commitment (most anchor contracts are for three to five years). Now, with ratings down and a pall of negativity hanging over Ms. King due to the spaceflight and oversharing about her celebrity friendships and vacations, she’s expected to face an uphill battle to avoid a huge pay cut.Last year, the “Today” show’s principal co-host, Hoda Kotb, resigned rather than take a huge cut to her paycheck, which was estimated to be more than $15 million a year. Previously, Norah O’Donnell was forced off the “CBS Evening News” due to her eight-figure salary, and the NBC “Nightly News” anchor, Lester Holt, is also stepping down. At ABC, the $25 million a year salaries of George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts remain intact, to the bafflement of some Disney insiders.Many observers think that like Ms. Kotb, Ms. King will resign rather than take a pay cut. CBS executives may be facing a choice of whether Ms. King just isn’t worth the money anymore or if the bottom will completely fall out if she leaves. Ms. O’Donnell’s firing is now widely believed to have been a mistake after ratings for the “Evening News” collapsed with her departure and with a format change, overseen by Ms. McMahon and Mr. Owens, that was disastrous for the iconic broadcast. The money lost in advertising revenue is believed to be far greater than the savings garnered by Ms. O’Donnell’s ouster.Vice President Harris sits down with Bill Whitaker for her ’60 Minutes’ interview. Via CBS NewsIndeed, back at CBS, the tensions in the news division are certainly not confined to the morning show. “60 Minutes” staffers have reportedly been getting into loud fights over issues such as how to cover stories and seating positions in conference rooms. The tension at “60 Minutes” is said to have begun after Mr. Owens, the executive producer, resigned in April, saying he had lost the ability to make independent decisions for the show.His resignation came months after Ms. Redstone reportedly pushed to have him fired after the newsmagazine program ran a story about dissent in the Department of State over America’s response to Israel’s war against Hamas. The segment was labeled “shockingly one-sided” against Israel by the American Jewish Committee. Mr. Owens is also blamed internally for the hard left shift by “60 Minutes” into a stridently anti-Trump program on a network whose prime-time audience skews more conservative than the other broadcast networks. He’s also blamed for giving left-wing producers free rein to edit the Harris interview to make her sound coherent and for the catastrophic error that occurred when “60 Minutes” distributed, on lesser CBS News platforms, cutting-room floor clips from the Harris interview that showed CBS had selectively edited a key question-and-answer sequence. Mr. Owens — who also opposed issuing an apology for the Harris interview — had remained at the network until April as tensions over Mr. Trump’s lawsuit reportedly led Paramount executives to supervise its content as the show obsessively aired stories critical of the Trump administration. Mr. Byers reported that Ms. Redstone inquired if the show could hold off on stories about the Trump administration until the Skydance deal is approved.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 Mr. Owens’s resignation, a “60 Minutes” fixture, Scott Pelley, informed viewers of the departure in a stunning rebuke of Paramount. “Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” Mr. Pelley said. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”The Daily Mail reports that “multiple sources” at “60 Minutes” say Mr. Pelley could be getting ready to leave the network. There has also been speculation that another star of the program, Leslie Stahl, may retire. CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Knives Out for Gayle King at CBS News After Embarrassing Spaceflight and Sinking Ratings: News Star’s $10 Million Salary on Chopping Block

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