CBS News still getting Bari-ed

The ratings at CBS news continue to crater:

“This isn’t what a turnaround looks like. This is what a train wreck looks like.”

That was how one veteran television executive put it to me Tuesday, after I asked about new ratings data showing that Tony Dokoupil’s “CBS Evening News” has continued to hemorrhage viewers and sink to new lows, as Bari Weiss’ hand-selected anchor struggles to hold the audience.

Indeed, according to Nielsen data obtained by Status, Dokoupil’s most recent week, beginning April 20, marked the lowest-rated stretch in total viewers since he took over the broadcast. The program averaged just 3.7 million viewers—slipping below the once-unthinkable 4 million threshold. In the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic, the show averaged only 467,000 viewers.

But that’s not the worst of it. According to the ratings data, the broadcast has now logged three consecutive weeks under 4 million viewers, a prolonged slump that was once unimaginable. The alarming audience erosion likely won’t be aided by the fact that summer is about to begin, suggesting that he may be stuck in the mud for some time. At the very least, it is not the narrative the David Ellison-owned network wanted saturating the public discourse as upfronts season gets underway.

Ultimately, April 2026 ranked as the second lowest-rated April for the “CBS Evening News” this century in total viewers—and the lowest ever in the 25–54 demographic. In that key demo, Dokoupil’s broadcast has now posted 12 straight weeks below 600,000 viewers, undercutting Weiss’ push to reinvent the broadcast to resonate with younger audiences.

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Veteran television news executives who spoke to Status described the CBS News numbers as nothing short of disastrous, with one noting that “many news businesses are thriving” with the massive crush of news hitting audiences on a daily basis. That person blamed Weiss for the network’s troubles, saying the audience is “rejecting her brand of faux centrism.”

“Her decisions have turned off even more of their shrinking audience,” the veteran television news executive said, adding: “These declines are part of a larger and deeper crisis at CBS News.”

A second veteran television news executive commented to Status, “I think we have enough evidence now to draw a conclusion. The audience has decided. Bari Weiss’s first major move as a television executive did not work.”

A third flatly described the situation as “a sinking ship,” adding: “It’s clear they have no idea what they are doing—and one has to wonder what will be left of CBS News once the merger goes through and the Ellisons are done having to placate [Donald] Trump.”

The plunging ratings are almost certainly hurting CBS News as a business, given that fewer eyeballs translate to less advertising revenue. “There’s no way it can’t be affecting their bottom line,” the second television veteran said.

Some people will continue to claim that this is actually what Ellison wants, but this remains implausible. It’s not just that plutocrats do not like losing money even if it has no material impact on their lives. It’s that the reason that Fox News is a very effective propaganda network is because people watch it. The Ellisons just figured that someone who made money running a group blog that relentlessly panders to the prejudices of people like them must be able to run an actual news division, for reasons inherent in the previous clause.

And in this context, Bari is an incredibly ham-handed and inept regime propagandist:

On Monday night of Tony Dokoupil’s first week as anchor of the CBS Evening News, Bari Weiss walked into the newsroom and asked to see the script. This was unusual—the network chief does not typically edit scripts directly—but Weiss was the new boss. After some objections from the show’s producers, she was given access and proceeded to add a few lines to a January 5 segment on the US military raid targeting Nicolás Maduro. Weiss’s edits, according to a former CBS producer, sought to cast President Donald Trump’s operation as a cunning maneuver to box out China, Russia, and Iran.

“Of course she writes it in the wrong place,” recalls the producer. The text was added to the teleprompter twice, leaving her new star anchor flummoxed, stumbling over his words for several excruciating seconds. “First day, big problems here,” he told the millions of viewers who’d tuned in.

“What a disaster,” says one former CBS News anchor. “Honestly, I would’ve fucking killed her. Are you serious? On the first night?”