TJ Walker breaks down CBS Evening News's collapse to 3 million viewers, half of ABC's 8 million, and explains why copying Fox's formula won't work. A single 30-minute slot can't generate enough revenue at those numbers, and the market for cable-style news on broadcast is already owned.
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Ultimize. According to recent ratings data, the CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil has been slipping, falling below 4 million viewers in multiple recent weeks and hovering closer to the mid-3 million range. Meanwhile, ABC World News Tonight is pulling more than 8 million viewers, and NBC Nightly News is sitting comfortably above 6 million. Now, that's not a gap That's a canyon. And here's the problem. When you're a network evening newscast, you don't have 24 hours like cable. You don't get to warm people up all day. You don't get multiple bites at the apple. You get one shot, 30 minutes. That's your entire business model. So if you're pulling half the audience of your competitors, the economics just don't look bad. They start looking unstable. CBS Evening News is now dipping below 4 million viewers, while ABC News is over 8 million. NBC is at 6 million. And here's why that matters. Network news isn't cable. You don't get 24 hours to build an audience. You get one half hour. That's it. That's your entire revenue engine. So if you're stuck at 3.5 million viewers while your competitors are doubling you, this isn't just a rating story. This is a business model problem. The math doesn't work. And the math doesn't work, eventually the content changes. Now let's talk about why this might be happening, because the new leadership led by Barry Weiss and backed by ownership tied to David Ellison seems to have made a very specific bet. The bet appears to be what America really wants is another network that feels like Fox News but maybe a little softer. Fox News light, diet Fox, Fox but with fewer calories and slightly more eye contact. Now look, Fox News has great ratings, no question, but that's like saying Coca-Cola has great market share. Of course it does. But if you decide today, I'm launching a brand new cola company, good luck getting shelf space, good luck getting distribution, good luck convincing people to switch from Coca-Cola to your brand. That market is taken. And the same is true for television news. CBS seems to be making a bet that what America needs is yet another version of Fox News. But here's the problem: Fox already exists, and it's dominating its lane. Trying to build Fox News Lite is like launching a new cola company and hoping people forget Coca-Cola exists. That's not how markets work, and it's especially not how television works, where habits are everything and loyalty is already baked in. And let's not forget, the first reported choice to anchor the new era of CBS News was Bret Baier. He's the Fox News guy. That tells you everything about the strategy. It's not subtle, it's not nuanced. It's basically, let's take what works over there and try to recreate it over here, except you don't have the same audience, you don't have the same infrastructure, and you definitely don't have the same time slot advantages as cable. So what happens next? Well, if the ratings keep sliding, I have a prediction, and this is kind of tongue-in-cheek but maybe not. We're about 3 months away from the 6:30 PM time slot on CBS being sold off to an infomercial. Not just any infomercial, a premium, high-quality, deeply serious, news-adjacent infomercial produced by Byron Allen. Tonight at 6:30, hard-hitting journalism brought to you by the revolutionary nonstick Freedom Pan. It slices, it dices, it tells you inflation is down while your grocery bill doubles. And honestly, at the current ratings trajectory, that might be the highest margin programming they've got. Or a better idea: bring back Stephen Colbert's old right-wing parody character. Let him anchor the news, but this time Don't tell the audience it's satire. Just let him go full monologue every night, somewhere between Bill O'Reilly and performance art. 30 minutes, no correspondence, no reporting, just make up stuff. Just one guy confidently explaining the world with absolute certainty. At least then the audience would know what they're getting. Because right now the biggest problem for CBS isn't just ratings. Its identity. Who is this for? Why should anyone switch? What's the unique value here? Because slightly different version of something people already have is not a winning strategy in media or anyplace else. And the ratings, they're really starting to reflect that. Ultimize.
