Bari Weiss is poised to overhaul CBS News, one of the nation’s most venerable downstream news outlets. The question is, will she be able to make money for her parent company, Paramount Skydance, once she does that?
The query is valid. Paramount executives believe Weiss, who was appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News earlier this month as part of the acquisition of digital opinion site The Free Press, will bring “a sense of energy and fearlessness” to the home of “60 Minutes” and “CBS Evening News,” according to a person familiar with the company. The person said Paramount executives were particularly impressed by a segment on the latest “60 Minutes” broadcast featuring a roundtable discussion between Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, in which they detailed to correspondent Leslie Stahl how they helped broker an apparent peace between Israel and Hamas.
What’s the problem? This telecast was one of the lowest-rated “60 Minutes” broadcasts in the early weeks of this season. The show averaged 6.9 million viewers overall and 946,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 age group, compared to nearly 10.2 million overall viewers and nearly 2.1 million in the 25-to-54 age group the previous week, according to Nielsen data, due to delays for “60 Minutes” in New York and a late finish to the NFL game. Overall viewership was down 32% from the previous week, according to Nielsen, and 54% among viewers ages 25 to 54, the demographic most coveted by news advertisers.
Such ups and downs are not unusual for “60,” where viewer ratings soar after NFL broadcasts. Still, the numbers are lower than the show’s average audience of nearly 8.6 million viewers last season, when viewership soared during the 2024 presidential election. The network received a boost after the Witkoff-Kushner interview garnered attention online, according to people familiar with the matter.
Scoops are important in the television news industry. However, promoting a large-scale interview and splitting it into multiple programs comes with a sense of sizzle, something Weiss will need to master, as he has no previous experience running an editorial operation on the scale of CBS News or producing a television program.
There are a lot of people in the newsroom who expect her to do that. And there are still those who do not understand what she is going to do with her new perch and how to proceed with it.
When the deal with Paramount was completed, Weiss hailed the deal as “a great moment for freedom of the press.” People are still trying to figure out what that means for the news department she now heads.
No one seems to be able to clarify the relationship between the Free Press, which still publishes the story, and CBS News, which has featured Weiss’ sister and Free Press co-founder Susie Weiss on its programs. Are the two part of one unit? Is “free press” bound by the same ethics and reporting standards as CBS News? There is concern among CBS News staffers that the non-union “free press” would not be bound by the same workplace policies as CBS News, where many employees are represented by the Writers Guild of America, two people familiar with the matter said. Weiss recently hired Adam Rubenstein as deputy editor of the Free Press, a move CBS News staffers hope will give him some say in the direction of CBS News reporting. Still, the CBS News union will expect its contracts to be honored, even for “free press” employees.
CBS News declined to request comment from executives. A spokesperson for WGA’s East Coast operations did not respond to a request for comment.
Inside CBS News, employees are hopeful Weiss can help boost viewership for the company’s streaming properties, which aren’t attracting the kind of viewers executives hope. CBS News got into the streaming game early, but hasn’t been able to take full advantage of its efforts as much as NBC News, which operates an independent streaming outlet dedicated to “Today” and a national news live streaming service called NBC News Now. In recent months, CBS has merged its national news reporting operations with its local stations and hired talent from both sides to create new streaming formats and programming, including a “Whiplash-style” show that introduces viewers to local news stories.
There’s also a sense that some of CBS News’ most famous programs are due for an overhaul.
Mr. Weiss has already helped book newsmakers for a segment on CBS News, set up Norah O’Donnell to moderate an online panel discussion with former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, and arranged interviews with Tony Dokoupil and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s worth noting that current CBS Evening News anchors Maurice Dubois and John Dickerson were not given such duties. Both men have hosted programs that have been reorganized to use a dual-anchor format and focus on corporate stories rather than breaking headlines, resulting in a significant drop in viewership.
Despite the recent attention to O’Donnell and Dokoupil, CBS News executives have begun lobbying talent agencies to bring in new anchors, according to three people familiar with the matter. CBS News is trying to figure out what kind of journalists are available in case a job offer comes in and, at least for now, would be open to placing those people in new positions at CBS News ahead of internal candidates, these people said.
Questions like this are not uncommon when a news department has new management. After Neeraj Khemrani took the helm at CBS News in 2021, CBS News reached out to agents in a similar way, wanting to know if potential candidates working elsewhere were approaching contract negotiations, two people familiar with the matter said.
The move to inject new talent into CBS News focuses on the fact that no matter what new policies and projects Weiss brings to the table, many old challenges still remain, which could be far more important financially to Paramount Skydance than any ideas she has about reporting or journalistic qualities.
CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings have long languished in third place, in part because they lost affiliates after CBS sold NFL rights to the fledgling Fox in 1994. But the network is doing well, often ranking first in prime time and late night (though it will likely lose that honor next year when CBS ends “The Late Show,” hosted by Stephen Colbert).
Weiss will also have to grapple with personnel decisions that will likely be highly scrutinized. Popular CBS Morning co-anchor Gayle King’s contract expires in 2026, according to three people familiar with the matter. King’s renewal is always a “question mark” because he often debates whether to continue and how to balance work and family, one of the people said. It’s unclear whether Paramount wants to continue paying the morning host his current salary, or if King is asked to take a pay cut, as CBS News’ parent company cuts costs and lays off staff.
Weiss has shown early skill in getting great “gets” at CBS News. But there’s a lot she has to master over the next few months, and little time to get it right.
