THE SET-UP: When Walter Cronkite was America’s most-watched news anchor and its “most trusted man,” his top-rated nightly news broadcast averaged around 29 million viewers per night. America was a nation of 200 million people when he took the lead from the Huntley-Brinkley Report in 1967 … and it’d grown to 220 million people when he retired in 1981.
To put that in perspective, Cronkite’s nightly audience was larger than the current viewership for all three network news broadcasts combined and, with a population of 340 million, today’s broadcasts can potentially reach about 120 million more viewers.
They can, but the don’t.
Looking at the week October 20th, ABC’s World News Tonight pulled an average of 7.864 million total viewers, NBC Nightly News attracted 5.843 million and Cronkite’s alma mater enticed 4.090 million total viewers. Rounding it up, that’s 18 million out of 340 million Americans currently tuning-in to all three newscasts versus 29 million out of 200-220 million Americans who watched Cronkite.
When you add the most recent audience tallies for the three major cable networks—Fox News averaged 2.274 million total viewers during primetime, MSNBC averaged 733,000 total viewers during primetime and CNN averaged 495,000 total primetime viewers—to the viewership of the three broadcast network’s flagship news programs, it’s still just 21.5 million viewers total in a nation of 340 million people. Veteran journalist Peter Herford noted a couple years ago that the three “nightly newscasts reached about 70 million viewers” every night during the format’s heyday. That’s roughly one-third of all Americans sitting down every evening to get the day’s news from one of three networks. Today, a bit more than 6 percent of all Americans watch the evening news programs on six networks.
That’s worth keeping in mind when you see what will no doubt be dozens of stories detailing Bari Weiss’s attempt to recondition CBS’s storied news division. The truth is that she’s there mostly to please Larry Ellison and pro-Israel chauvinists worried about the massive shift in public opinion against the State of Israel’s civilian killing spree in Gaza. Ellison’s son probably also saw in Weiss’s successful Substack site the potential to increase the younger half of the key 25-54 age demographic CBS News struggles to attract.
It’s the “key demo” number that really matters to advertisers.
Last week’s installments of the CBS Evening News drew an average of 457,000 viewers in the key demo. It’s probably safe to assume that number is heavily Gen X and they are beginning to age out of the key demo. Cord-cutting Millennials will not replace them. And they are followed by cordless cadres of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. That leaves Boomers as main audience for broadcast news programming. And anyone who’s sat through catheter commercials on FOX News knows the same is true for the cable outlets.
In other words, Bari Weiss, who spun a fit of performative outrage into an anti-Woke brand, has been given the wheel of a slowly sinking ship. The upside for her is that she doesn’t need to replicate Cronkite’s numbers to be labeled a success. She doesn’t need “broadcast” numbers. Frankly, no one in broadcast does. The landscape is far too fragmented for that. What began as too many options quickly became the self-reinforcing sifting and separation of the audience into algorithmically narrowcasted niches. The 70 million people who once collectively watched news every weeknight now watch 700 different types of content on one of dozens of platforms, outlets and apps … and they often do it on-demand while multitasking. And they’ve been doing it that way for a while now.
That’s why Weiss’s time atop CBS News might be a mixed bag.
At first, simple curiosity is destined to deliver her reshaped news programming a decent boost. Both devotees and detractors will watch just to see what, if anything, happens. She’ll also draw some ideologues … particularly those who think The Tiffany Network is a Leftist propaganda outlet. It’s ridiculous, but not unsurprising given the way Murdoch and Roger Ailes recalibrated the political spectrum in the Right’s favor. It’s a recalibration Weiss opportunistically exploited during the post-pandemic Anti-Woke Panic. She will certainly milk that cash cow in her new role … but the returns on that are diminishing.
Ultimately, she will face the reality of the “key demo” and, I suspect, she will begin chasing the audience … or segments of the audience who respond to having their biases confirmed. Confirming biases has been a big part of her success. She inverted it and ultimately scored a $150 million payday by reassuring her audience that they are right and it’s everybody else who is biased. It’s a market-tested product that sold well to pandemic weary cynics who resolved their anger by punching down. But, as Trump has shown, punching down makes for good clickbait. It also is a glass house. Maybe she doesn’t see it. Either way, her audience-calibrated style of opinioneering is plenty good enough to attract 1.5 million Substack subscribers (170k are paying subscribers). But if you look at the numbers for FOX News and MSNBC, you’ll see a similar ceiling. If that’s all the Ellisons want in addition to burnishing Israel’s image, Weiss will endure. But if it’s growth Ellison the Younger wants, Weiss might find it’s easier to build a niche brand from scratch than to reshape a broadcasting legacy. - jp
Opinion | Bari Weiss’s CBS era begins with the loss of one of the network’s top journalists
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/why-is-john-dickerson-leaving-cbs/
‘This Is Bari’s CBS News’; Puck Predicts More Layoffs, Weiss Looking to Woo Cooper
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/10/30/baris-cbs-news-puck-predicts-more-layoffs-weiss-looking-woo-cooper
Bari Weiss has added another Fox News star to her list of potential ‘CBS Evening News’ anchors
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/cbs-news-bari-weiss-fox-dana-perino-b2856400.html
EXCLUSIVE: Jake Tapper ‘Shooting for CBS News Job Opening’ Amid New Boss Bari Weiss’ Network Facelift... as Anchor Claims Next Generation Will Be ‘A Lot More Conservative’
https://radaronline.com/p/jake-tapper-cbs-news-job-opening-bari-weiss-conservative/
CBS News fired 8 on-air personalities in latest layoffs under new leader Bari Weiss. All of them are women
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/cbs-news-layoffs-eight-women-b2855655.html
Exclusive | CBS reporter fired in wake of firestorm over Gaza interview with Mike Huckabee now looking to sue
https://nypost.com/2025/10/30/media/ex-cbs-reporter-debora-patta-fired-in-wake-of-controversial-gaza-reporting-may-sue-network-source/
CBS News boss Bari Weiss saved pro-Israel reporter’s job after he lobbied her directly
https://nypost.com/2025/10/31/media/cbs-news-bari-weiss-saved-pro-israel-reporter-and-fired-debora-patta-report/
Gayle King expected to exit ‘CBS Mornings’ amid ongoing internal shake-up: report
https://www.enstarz.com/articles/242832/20251031/gayle-kings-14-year-run-cbs-mornings-ending-amid-backlash-15m-salary.htm
CBS ‘Race And Culture’ Unit Dies Swift Death As Outlet Sheds Jobs Under Bari Weiss
https://tippinsights.com/cbs-race-and-culture-unit-dies-swift-death-as-outlet-sheds-jobs-under-bari-weiss/
The fall of the CBS News climate team
htts://heated.world/p/cbs-news-kills-its-climate-unit
Trump Sits for Interview With CBS for First Time Since Suing Network
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-sits-for-interview-with-cbs-for-first-time-since-suing-network/