‘Sinking Morale’ at CBS as ‘Evening News’ Revamp Has ‘Disappointing’ Ratings, Is Dismissed as ‘Dead on Arrival’

The debut of the revamped “CBS Evening News” got off to a rocky start during its first week, and the ratings are likely disappointing executives – including the CBS network’s centibillionaire new owners – who hoped the new format would boost the show’s viewership.It’s the latest CBS News-related disappointment for the Ellison family, whose company Skydance purchased CBS parent company Paramount Global last year. Skydance had pledged in writing to the Trump Administration that they would reform CBS News and ensure that its programming would be unbiased and better reflective of its audience’s diverse range of views. For decades, executives at CBS News have been trying to boost ratings for the “Evening News,” which has consistently come in a distant third place since it was dethroned in the mid-1980s. At the end of 2025, CBS executives sought to once again revamp the program — less than a year after the Tiffany Network launched a disastrous dual anchor format orchestrated by “60 Minutes” producers and hosted by John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois — and elevated Tony Dokoupil, the husband of far left MS Now (formerly MSNBC) star Katy Tur, to the anchor chair. Usually, a new, much marketed new anchor leads to a large, if brief, bump in the ratings. However, the new format does not appear to have led to an influx of viewers. Data from Nielsen showed that the “Evening News” averaged 4.2 million viewers last week, down 23 percent compared to the same time last year in total viewers and in the coveted 25 –54-year-old demo. Throughout the week, the program lost viewers, and Friday’s episode drew in just 3.8 million viewers, down 15 percent from the start of the week. CBS News was not the only network to see lower ratings last week. NBC News and ABC News’ ratings were both down nine percent compared to the same time last year. Last year, the networks were carrying coverage of the wildfires in California that devastated large swaths around Los Angeles and were preparing for the inauguration of President Trump. The latest iteration of the “Evening News” had a smaller audience than the debut week of Messrs. Dickerson and DuBois last January. Mr. Dokoupil’s ratings were down 15 percent in total viewers and 19 percent in the demo from the debut of Messrs. Dickerson and DuBois. The duo averaged 4.91 million viewers in the first week of that revamp. Some industry observers say that the damage done by the “60 Minutes”-conceived Dickerson-DuBois pairing, in which the show focused on dull topics like child literacy rather than the most pressing news-of-the-day, may be irreparable, as broadcast news is in terminal decline and it’s very difficult to win back viewers who leave. Last week’s numbers mean that the “Evening News” is still in a distant third place. During that same time period, NBC’s “Nightly News” averaged 6.73 million viewers and ABC’s “World News Tonight” averaged 8.08 million viewers. CBS also touted that its “total minutes on YouTube” were up 58 percent. But, a left-wing media journalist, Oliver Darcy, wrote in his “Status” newsletter that failing to increase in the first week is “somewhat of a failure given the extraordinary effort that has gone into promoting his first two weeks in the chair.”Mr. Darcy noted that CBS News has been heavily promoting Mr. Dokoupil’s new gig as the anchor of the “Evening News” and used a private jet arranged by Paramount for him to embark on a 10-city tour.“CBS News leadership has fully embraced placing the anchor at the center of the story itself, with Dokoupil delivering on-air monologues about the loss of trust in the press, the “CBS Evening News” issuing declarations of its love for America, and the social team even circulating a strange video of Dokoupil openly weeping during a hometown interview with a Miami affiliate,” Mr. Darcy said. Mr. Dokoupil’s first week has also been ridiculed for a teleprompter blooper, his emotional interview with the CBS affiliate at Miami — a conservative podcaster, Megyn Kelly, mocked that video and said it is an example of the “feminization of the newsroom.A “veteran television executive” told Mr. Darcy, “CBS isn’t losing the evening news race, they already lost it.”“The total audience is soft, but the demo is a catastrophe. They’re pulling barely half of NBC and ABC in [the 25-54 demo], night after night. That’s not a rounding error, that’s a hospice situation,” the executive added. “No spikes, no momentum, nothing. It’s a legacy broadcast in a nutshell—cheap, aging eyeballs with no future. You can slap whatever spin you want on it, but the numbers say the new ‘CBS Evening News’ is dead on arrival.”Another executive said the revamp has turned out to be a “whiff,” and suggested that last week’s ratings are going to be the “high-water mark” for the “Evening News.”Those disappointing ratings come as the program has landed interviews with major figures in the Trump Administration, such as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. On Tuesday, Mr. Dokoupil interviewed President Trump. Mr. Darcy suggested that those interviews are “likely alienating quadrants of the CBS News audience, which does not appear especially eager to tune in for gentle sit-downs with powerful figures,” and that CBS staffers “don’t want to see” the show either.He said that he has “repeatedly heard about sinking morale” at CBS, “whether on the ‘Evening News’ team or at ‘60 Minutes.’”However, he said the less adversarial interviews seem to be in line with the wishes of David Ellison, the chief executive of CBS’s parent company, Skydance Media. Before Skydance acquired CBS, its executives made written commitments to the Federal Communications Commission to practice fair journalism. Mr. Ellison told reporters in August that he has Democrats and Republicans in his family, and he wants to make CBS into a network that both feel they can watch. He brought on Bari Weiss, the founder of the Free Press, to serve as CBS News’s editor-in-chief to help carry out his goal of shifting the network’s editorial voice. Although the “Evening News” has been criticized by left-wing viewers for its changes and ridiculed for its “whiff” the first week, Mr. Darcy and Puck’s Dylan Byers suggest that the changes are aligned with Mr. Ellison’s wishes, and that he is not itching to change course. CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

‘Sinking Morale’ at CBS as ‘Evening News’ Revamp Has ‘Disappointing’ Ratings, Is Dismissed as ‘Dead on Arrival’

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