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CBS’s “Evening News” program lost over a million viewers in its first week under its new anchor, Tony Dokoupil, compared to the same period last year, marking a sharp loss for the network after the network’s billionaire owners installed far right provocateur Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief in October.
Data from media audience measurement firm Nielsen shows that the show lost nearly a quarter of its viewership in the first five days of Dokoupil taking over the program, from January 5 to January 9, compared to the same period last year.
While the program had an average of 5.4 million viewers each day over that period last year, Variety reports, only about 4.17 million watched the program this year. Other previous anchors’ debuts for the program have gotten roughly 5 million viewers or more, Variety points out.
Viewership between the ages of 25 to 54, which advertisers view as their prime audience in news programs, also fell by nearly a quarter, plummeting from 690,000 last year to 533,000, the data showed.
Dokoupil was promoted to anchor of the show, previously hosted by Norah O’Donnell, as the favored voice of President Donald Trump’s fascist movement after Weiss was reportedly unable to land Fox News’s Bret Baier.
The plunge in viewership comes as Weiss has ushered in a far right, Trump-favoring pivot for the network.
Weiss’s short tenure has already been marked with numerous scandals, including a decision in December to abruptly cancel a broadcast of 60 Minutes that was slated to show “brutal” conditions within the El Salvador prison into which the Trump administration has disappeared hundreds of immigrants.
In just his first weeks, meanwhile, Dokoupil has invited numerous right-wing guest interviewees and billionaires to speak on the program, and analysts have noted his tonal shift in favoring right-wing figures, especially those in the Trump orbit.
Last week, just days after the Trump administration bombarded Venezuela and illegally abducted its president, Dokoupil had a segment sharing light-hearted AI images made of Secretary of State Marco Rubio dressed up in different outfits — including one where he’s dressed as the “new Shah of Iran” — riffing off of Rubio’s many roles within the administration.
“Whatever you think of his politics, you’ve got to admit, it’s an impressive résumé,” he said. “Marco Rubio, we salute you.” The segment was posted online by the White House in approval.
Prior to getting the job, Dokoupil had made headlines previously for making hostile, racist comments in an interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2024 in a line of questioning about the Palestine section of Coates’s book, The Message. CBS reprimanded him for the comments at the time.
Weiss has apparently relished in the scandals, even if viewership of one of the network’s top news shows has taken a hit. In a note to “CBS Evening News” producers ahead of Dokoupil’s tour of the U.S., which has kicked off his tenure on the program, she apparently told staff that she wanted the network to “be the news,” rather than report it.
“Let’s make sure every single night has something with viral potential,” Weiss said in a note to producers obtained by The New York Times. “The goal for this road show is not to deliver the news so much as it is to *drive the news*.”
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