It's Worse That Even CBS Thought it Could Be

If there were any alarm bells ringing at Black Rock, they have likely turned into full-blown sirens.

The numbers for the new CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil are in, and suffice to say, they are awful.

Despite an extraordinary promotional push for Dokoupil’s first two weeks in the chair, the ratings are not just bad—they are in freefall. Dokoupil’s numbers are down 23% year-over-year in both total audience and the critical 25-54 demographic.

For context, while ABC News slid 11% and NBC News dropped 10% in total viewers over a similar time frame, both CNN and MSNBC actually saw year-over-year growth. CBS isn't just following a trend; they are leading the race to the bottom.

It gets worse when you compare Dokoupil to his immediate predecessors. Against the debut week of the Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson co-hosted Evening News—a show we pointed out last year had horrendous numbers—Dokoupil still managed to come in 15% lower in total viewers and 19% lower in the key demo. Clearing a bar that low shouldn't be this hard.

Perhaps most alarming for CBS executives is the daily erosion. Dokoupil lost ground on every single night he hosted. By Friday, viewership had slipped under the 4 million mark to 3.8 million, with only 431,000 in the key demo. That is a 15% loss in total viewers and a staggering 29% drop in the demo just from Monday to Friday.

It likely didn't help that Dokoupil’s much-hyped sit-down with Donald Trump was widely panned as an embarrassment for the network. The interview was filled with softballs and virtually devoid of follow-ups, looking more like a PR segment than a serious news interview. If that was the strategy to win over viewers, the data suggests it backfired spectacularly.

Staying flat year-over-year would have been a disappointment given the hype. But these numbers? This is a disaster.