{"id":529788,"date":"2026-03-18T00:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T00:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/529788\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T00:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T00:50:08","slug":"cbs-evening-news-viewership-drops-below-4-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/529788\/","title":{"rendered":"‘CBS Evening News’ Viewership Drops Below 4 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSuddenly, \u201cCBS Evening News<\/a>\u201d is back where executives at the news division behind the show hoped never to return.<\/p>\n

\n\tViewership 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 \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d anchored by Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson<\/a> after the program shed audience and fell below 4 million viewers on many weeknights.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn contrast, ABC\u2019s \u201cWorld News Tonight,\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cNBC Nightly News\u201d captured an average of 6.51 million overall in the same period, and 946,000 in the demo. <\/p>\n

\n\tCBS News \u201cretitled\u201d the Friday broadcast of \u201cEvening News,\u201d so its results are not included in the tabulations.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne reason Dokoupil was moved from a perch on \u201cCBS Mornings\u201d to become anchor of the show<\/a> is because CBS News executives worried they were falling further behind ABC\u2019s \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d and NBC\u2019s \u201cNBC Nightly News\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tQuarter to date as of March 12, \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cNBC Nightly News\u201d is up 8% in the demo, while ABC\u2019s \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d is off 4%. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Norah O\u2019Donnell ended her tenure at \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d in 2024, she left with an audience of nearly 5.4 million. Dokoupil\u2019s first five days, from January 5 to January 9, won an average of nearly 4.17 million<\/a>, according to data from Nielsen \u2014 and in a subsequent week, he even nabbed an audience of 4.6 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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 \u201cBig Three\u201d evening-news anchors to get so close to the battle.<\/p>\n

\n\tDokoupil has gained traction over the years during his time as a co-anchor on \u201cCBS Mornings,\u201d 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. <\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tCBS 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\u2019s \u201cEvening News\u201d gaining viewers when compared to broadcasts of the show from earlier in the season. The show\u2019s viewership is up 7% in viewers and up 10% among viewers between 25 and 54 when compared to the average viewership of the current season to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suddenly, \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d is back where executives at the news division behind the show hoped never to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[61590,88,149597,92],"class_list":["post-529788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-cbs-evening-news","tag-entertainment","tag-tony-dokoupil","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}