CBS News’ recently hired editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reportedly told her staff in January, “We are not producing a product that enough people want,” and that “I am here to make CBS News fit for purpose in the 21st century.” But a look at the network’s recent slide in ratings suggests that her own sense of what “people want” is out of touch.
That downturn provides a glimmer of hope for those of us who oppose oligarchical capture of our media landscape. It could be an indication that the public is averse to seeing traditional legacy media like CBS meddled with by reactionary billionaires and injected with an obvious right-leaning ideological agenda — and is voting by changing the channel.
It looks like Weiss’ much-criticized mission to shake things up at CBS News and appeal to new audiences is failing, and may have even backfired.
According to Oliver Darcy’s “Status” newsletter, ratings for the show that epitomize Weiss’ influence over the network — Tony Dokoupil’s “CBS Evening News” — are plunging. Citing Nielsen data, “Status” reports that the week beginning April 20 “marked the lowest-rated stretch in total viewers since Dokoupil took over the broadcast” in January, and that the show has “now logged three consecutive weeks under 4 million viewers, a prolonged slump that was once unimaginable.”
“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,” “Status” notes. Considering that Weiss was specifically angling to attract widely coveted younger viewers to broadcast network television, that’s not a promising sign.
The ratings slump is not confined to Dokoupil’s show. “Status” reports that “CBS Mornings” had “its worst ratings on record in the first quarter of 2026” and saw “its lowest-rated April on record in both total audience and the 25-54 demographic,” suggesting a “network-wide public image problem under Weiss’ leadership.” CBS News declined to comment on the story to “Status.”
All in all, it looks like Weiss’ much-criticized mission to shake things up at CBS News and appeal to new audiences is failing, and may have even backfired; even if there are some new viewers tuning in, currently more of them appear to be tuning out from its flagship shows. While I am sympathetic to the many people who work hard to produce quality journalism at CBS, it is encouraging to see signs that the viewing public may be skeptical of Weiss’ programming decisions.
David Ellison, backed by his father Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and a Trump ally, purchased Paramount, which owns CBS, in 2025. The New York Times, citing two people with knowledge of the president’s comments, reported that “Trump has privately said Larry Ellison assured him that he would turn CBS News, which the Ellisons took over when they bought Paramount, into a more conservative outlet.” David Ellison’s pick of Weiss — who made her name by founding the anti-woke Free Press media outlet (which was acquired by Paramount) — to take over CBS News was about as clear a signal as one could get that the Ellisons wanted to push CBS to the right and make it regime-friendly.
Weiss quickly took aggressive steps to change CBS News — including layoffs of staff and the hiring of right-wing and Make America Healthy Again-friendly contributors. She picked Dokoupil to lead CBS News’ flagship evening show, whose broadcasts have used empty both-sides framing to normalize extremist MAGA politics. (Dokoupil was also once humiliated by Trump on air when the president appeared to insinuate that he was the reason Dokoupil had a job, which appeared to be a reference to the Paramount merger that his administration approved.)
Weiss has also made what seemed to be politicized interventions in her broadcasts, once pulling a “60 Minutes” episode about Venezuelans being sent to the CECOT superprison in El Salvador just hours before it was supposed to air because, she said, it did not sufficiently include the Trump administration’s perspective. Such a decision so close to an air date is extremely unusual, and in a private note to colleagues, the “60 Minutes” correspondent who had reported the segment, wrote,“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” and that, “In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” The episode eventually aired a few weeks later, with some changes including a statement from the Trump administration that was not in the earlier version.
It is not abnormal for a new executive to oversee personnel and programming changes shortly after they take the helm at a new media outlet. What’s striking in this case is the transparent politicking going on between CBS’ new ownership, Weiss’ installment and the general thrust of her changes.
Now if there was a huge appetite for this, at least among people who would consider tuning into broadcast network news, then CBS would likely see an uptick in audience. But the opposite is happening — and it might be because the network is building a reputation as regime propaganda, or simply making its programming worse as part of that effort.
In a classic example of Weiss’ heavy-handed attempt to remake CBS News into a right-leaning ideological project, the company listed “We Love America” as one of its new principles guiding its coverage. As my colleague Anthony Fisher wrote, the glib subtext of the slogan is that media companies to the left of Weiss’ operation are somehow less patriotic by virtue of their political orientation. In any case, the company’s ratings suggest that America doesn’t love it back.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.