CBS News’ “60 Minutes” had its first fall premiere under conservative editor-in-chief Bari Weiss Sunday night, and it was an embarrassing ratings disaster. According to the first round of ratings, “60 Minutes” saw an overall ratings decline of 21% from its last season premiere. Even more troubling for CBS, ratings were down 33% in the key demographic of 25- to 54-year olds—viewers most sought after by advertisers. The premiere had a total estimated viewership of around 7.94 million viewers, despite a lead-in audience of more than 18 million viewers from the NFL broadcast that preceded.
The decline in the ratings was so severe that even the right-wing New York Post—which is owned by Rupert Murdoch—took notice of the weak performance, noting that “60 Minutes” ratings have not been this low since 2000. Last year, the show had more than 9 million viewers—but that was before Weiss hired figures like conservative pundit Ross Douthat and purged a host of CBS News stalwarts.
The show’s poor performance echoes the ratings failure at “CBS Evening News” on the same network. That program, hosted by anchor Tony Dokoupil, had near-record lows in viewership after airing features like a “salute” to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Meanwhile, Weiss has dumped figures like Scott Pelley, who revealed that reporters, producers, and others involved in the newsmaking process have been pressured by Weiss and other management to produce content that’s more favorable to President Donald Trump and the GOP. The ratings debacle can ultimately be traced to CBS owner David Ellison, who took control when the Trump administration allowed his company Skydance to buy Paramount, CBS’ parent company.
Ellis, GOP donor and Trump ally, installed Weiss and oversaw the right-wing drift. Ellison is now trying to get approval to merge CBS with Warner Bros., which owns CNN. If he’s allowed to proceed, the weak ratings for CBS may soon be coming to CNN too. But at least Trump will enjoy the programming.
No comments:
Post a Comment