Suddenly, “CBS Evening News” is back where executives at the news division behind the show hoped never to return.
Viewership for the program has once again dropped below 4 million, a critical demarcation point that previously spurred alarm at the Paramount Skydance news division. CBS News recently scrapped a version of “CBS Evening News” anchored by Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson after the program shed audience and fell below 4 million viewers on many weeknights.
The overall audience for the program for the five days ended March 13 stood at nearly 3.83 million, according to data from Nielsen, and at 468,000 among viewers between 25 and 54, the demographic most coveted by advertisers.
In contrast, ABC’s “World News Tonight,” long the leading program among the three broadcast-network evening news shows, won an average of nearly 8.48 million, according to Nielsen, along with 1.03 million in the demo. NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” captured an average of 6.51 million overall in the same period, and 946,000 in the demo.
CBS News “retitled” the Friday broadcast of “Evening News,” so its results are not included in the tabulations.
One reason Dokoupil was moved from a perch on “CBS Mornings” to become anchor of the show is because CBS News executives worried they were falling further behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” with Dickerson and DuBois, who led a show that focused more heavily on enterprise stories and news features than it did on breaking headlines. Now those concerns are poised to rise anew.
Quarter to date as of March 12, “CBS Evening News” has shed 15% of its viewership in the critical 25-to-54 demo, the audience coveted by advertisers in news programming, over the year-earlier period. In comparison, NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” is up 8% in the demo, while ABC’s “World News Tonight” is off 4%.
When Norah O’Donnell ended her tenure at “CBS Evening News” in 2024, she left with an audience of nearly 5.4 million. Dokoupil’s first five days, from January 5 to January 9, won an average of nearly 4.17 million, according to data from Nielsen — and in a subsequent week, he even nabbed an audience of 4.6 million.
The slide in audience comes after CBS News took Dokoupil around the nation and into the Middle East just after the conflict erupted between Iran and the U.S. and Israel. Dokoupil was the only one of the so-called “Big Three” evening-news anchors to get so close to the battle.
Dokoupil has gained traction over the years during his time as a co-anchor on “CBS Mornings,” won the notice of both former CBS News President Susan Zirinsky and current CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss. He has demonstrated a proclivity for developing interesting features, and, more recently, for taking on author Ta-Nehisi Coates on whether his writing expressed antipathy for Israel.
CBS News executives ascribe some portion of the viewership results to changes tied to the recent shift to Daylight Savings Time, according to a person familiar with the matter. And they have been encouraged by results that show Dokoupil’s “Evening News” gaining viewers when compared to broadcasts of the show from earlier in the season.
