this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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The plunge in viewership comes as Weiss has ushered in an era of Trump-friendly politics for the network.

CBS’s “Evening News” program lost over a million viewers in its first week under its new anchor, Tony Dokoupil, compared to the same period last year, marking a sharp loss for the network after the network’s billionaire owners installed far right provocateur Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief in October.

Data from media audience measurement firm Nielsen shows that the show lost nearly a quarter of its viewership in the first five days of Dokoupil taking over the program, from January 5 to January 9, compared to the same period last year. 

While the program had an average of 5.4 million viewers each day over that period last year, Variety reports, only about 4.17 million watched the program this year. Other previous anchors’ debuts for the program have gotten roughly 5 million viewers or more, Variety points out.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 7 points 8 hours ago

Not only have I stopped any CBS News media, I consider it to be the equivalent of Fox News or the National Enquirer.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 74 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

They don’t care. Ratings isn’t the point of this nonsense.

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 14 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

A 25% drop from 5.4 million viewers is still 4.17 million people receiving state sanctioned ~~propaganda~~ "news"

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago

They’re working on buying up all the other channels so that there’s nothing else to watch.

[–] Rekhyt@lemmy.world 16 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

It is for Trump. The only thing he cares about is ratings.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

He might, because he's a dumbass.

He and other conservative chuds feel that TV shows on linear television have "low ratings" because they went "woke", when the reality is that there is a sea change in consumer media habits.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 12 points 13 hours ago

Shortsighted. He used to care about that; now it’s just a tool for him. He wants the destruction now. He’s out for revenge. We stole his little kid rapey time from him and he had to kill his friend to cover it up and it’s OUR fault that that happened and he’s gonna make us PAY while we kiss his ass

[–] handsoffmydata@lemmy.zip 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Nothing will change. It’s not about making money it’s about controlling the flow of information.

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Who gives a shit about changing CBS. Just fucking drop them like a goddamn rock.

[–] 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

My pihole blocks CBS news for some reason.

I'll not be fixing it.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago

mine did this for home depot, same thing. I think I did end up fixing it, but the thing is, I just don't go to the site anymore

[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 36 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

They cancelled Colbert. As a result, I have cancelled them.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 11 hours ago

I watch Colbert via streaming. So empty viewer.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 8 points 11 hours ago

Make no mistake: it was always corporate news, but now it's just: See BS.

[–] CptOblivius@lemmy.world 24 points 14 hours ago

That is a good start, could do better though.

[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 25 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Not strictly speaking.They wanted to tap into the self captive viewership of the broadcaster to harness for propaganda. They always knew viewership would go down. It just wasn't their goal. Still, only a million seems awfully low. That's a million out of how many?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 22 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

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

So they lost ~25% of their viewership, which isn't unremarkable.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 14 points 14 hours ago

Note to self, at least 1/4 people who watched cbs are pretty alright.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

And the 3/4 that are left will be slowly shifted right as they Fox Newsify it.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It'll plateau sure, but it's only been a week - we can hope the trend continues. I myself did not know about the merger change until I saw this post (although I'm by no means a regular CBS viewer) so there's still plenty of people who will depart from the platform.

[–] 14specks@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Since it's on a downswing, wouldn't it technically be a "valley" instead of a "plateau"?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I just meant that the trend of losing viewers will level off at some point.

[–] 14specks@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

No I know, just being pedantic about it for fun

plateau
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valley

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[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 3 points 14 hours ago

Nice. It's a start, but anything less than 100% is incomplete. But you still love to see it. 😄

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 2 points 9 hours ago

That's not enough to make a difference. Though if the new owners think they can steal Fawx News viewers they're gonna feel real stupid before long.

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago

Weiss and Ellison should hold hands and live stream jumping off the cbs building

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago

I was subscribed to Paramout Plus for many years, but they’ve lost me as a customer cause of all their BS. I’m going to boycott their products as much as I can.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 8 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)
[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 2 points 11 hours ago

That's like 999,999 more viewers than I thought they had.

[–] Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

Most normies aren’t into propaganda

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 points 12 hours ago

Yesterday I went to https://farside.link/x.com to look at a K Rittenhouse xheet. There were hundreds of responses, and they were sorted by Likes: I had to scroll down many, many pages before I found even one that at least could be consider pro MAGA, and many more to get into actual MAGA territory.

Of course this is anecdotal, but it makes me think that even on X, MAGA is not the majority.

Apparently the same goes for fascist TV content.