TV Ratings: Revamped CBS Evening News Ratings Challenged

CBS Evening News continues to struggle post-Norah O’Donnell, who departed in January 2025 after anchoring from 2019. 

Ratings for the week of June 16, per Nielsen data cited by AdWeek, show the revamped program, now hosted by John Dickerson and Maurice Dubois, drew 3.981 million total viewers and 526,000 in the Adults 25-54 demo. This reflects a -4% drop in total viewers and demo from the prior week, and a steeper -8% in total viewers and -15% in demo year-over-year.

Under CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon, the show adopted a 60 Minutes-style magazine format, focusing on in-depth segments rather than headline rundowns. The changes follow O’Donnell’s tenure, during which the program consistently ranked third behind NBC and ABC.

For the same week, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas had 5.678 million total viewers and 820,000 in the demo, flat in total viewers but down -3% in demo week-over-week, and down -1% in total viewers but up +11% in demo year-over-year. ABC World News Tonight led with 7.448 million total viewers and 1.038 million in the demo, up +3% and +4% respectively from the prior week, and +4% in total viewers and +9% in demo compared to 2024.