By Basant El-Faramawy
CBS News finished a distant last among major broadcast and cable networks in viewership for Tuesday's midterm election night coverage, according to early Nielsen data cited by Variety and CNN.
Viewership Numbers
The network attracted approximately 2.6 million total viewers during primetime, with 715,000 in the key 25-to-54 demographic. NBC led all networks with 6.52 million viewers, followed by ABC at 4.91 million. The three major cable news channels — CNN, MSNBC and Fox News — each averaged roughly 3.9 million viewers.
Leadership Changes and Criticism
The ratings slump comes after David Ellison took control of Paramount and installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Since the overhaul, the network's evening newscast anchored by Tony Dokoupil has also struggled, averaging 4.04 million viewers last season, a 3 percent decline. That figure still trails NBC's "Nightly News" with Tom Llamas (6.72 million) and ABC's "World News Tonight" with David Muir (8.84 million).
Meanwhile, NBC's chief data analyst Steve Kornacki drew a record 29 million views across social platforms, with his "Kornacki Cam" attracting twice as many live viewers as its main competitors.
Weiss has faced internal criticism over editorial decisions, including the delayed airing of a "60 Minutes" segment on Venezuelan migrants sent to an El Salvadoran prison. A major shakeup at "60 Minutes" in May, dubbed "Black Thursday," saw the ouster of executive producer Tanya Simon, her deputy Draggan Mihailovich, and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. One network insider described Weiss as unwilling to listen to dissenting views.
