A lot of people are talking about the revamped “CBS Evening News” under new anchor Tony Dokoupil — but not enough to make the program an unqualified ratings success in its first week.
Overall viewership for the first five days of Dokoupil’s official run on the venerable CBS News program was off 23% from what the program captured a year ago, when then-anchor Norah O’Donell was leading viewers through news of tumultuous California wildfires and the run-up to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Dokoupil’s first five days, from January 5 to January 9, won an average of nearly 4.17 million, according to data from Nielsen, compared with nearly 5.4 million in the year-earlier period
Among viewers between 25 to 54, the demographic favored most by advertisers in news programming, the audience also fell 23%, according to data from Nielsen. Dokoupil’s first five days captured an average of 533,000, compared with 690,000 a year earlier.
The numbers pale in comparison to results at ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly News,” which captured overall crowds of nearly 8.1 million and nearly 6.73 million, respectively.
The results show what a challenge CBS News and its new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, have ahead. While the nation’s three mainstay broadcast evening news programs continue to capture significant viewership, that audience is largely older — and not growing wider. Younger viewers are more prone to get their information from social media, digital venues and other new-tech outlets. And yet, the more changes the networks try to make to their evening-news programs, the more they run the risk of alienating their current audience, while not making much of a splash with the crowds they hope to collect.
Weiss has bet on Dokoupil to spearhead a broadcast that is noticeably different from what has run in the past. CBS News had overhauled its “Evening News” format and was using two anchors, Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson. But the format proved unwieldly, and a significant portion of viewers left the show. Dokoupil has anchored a hard-working program, turning up in Miami and Denver in recent days, but at the same time has been derailed in certain instances, such as a verbal stumble on his first official weekday telecast, or awkward segment during which he has tried to justify changes in American vaccine policy or the shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by federal agents.
All this takes place as CBS News’ corporate parent, Paramount Skydance, tries to make a case to Warner Bros. Discovery, that it’s a suitable custodian for properties such as CNN and HBO.
CBS News, for its part, is pleased with the traction Dokoupil has garnered among digital crowds. During the last seven days, total minutes spent watching CBS Evening News videos on YouTube grew 58%, compared to the weekly average in 2025.
Even so, Dokoupil’s first week debut was softer than that for his predecessors. DuBois and Dickerson captured an average of nearly 4.82 million during their first week earlier in 2025. Jeff Glor captured more than 7 million. And Norah O’Donnell won an average of 5.24 million, while Scott Pelley lured an average overall audience of around 5.72 million.
More to come…
