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  "path": "/post/212196/cbs-ratings-nosedive-bari-weiss-60-minutes-purge",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-23T13:21:31.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "United States",
    "CBS",
    "Bari Weiss",
    "60 Minutes",
    "Media",
    "Status",
    "notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison",
    "Variety"
  ],
  "textContent": "CBS News is losing heads, both in the newsroom and across America.\n\nViewership plummeted at CBS News weeks after its chief, Bari Weiss, fired numerous producers and correspondents from _60 Minutes_ , according to Nielsen ratings data obtained by Status.\n\nDamage was particularly bad at _CBS Mornings_ , hosted by Gayle King, which has long held the third-place ratings spot among network morning shows. But that recently changed: _CBS Mornings_ averaged 1.8 million total viewers earlier this month, then dropped to 1.59 million on June 3, the day after executives fired Scott Pelley, the de facto face of CBS News.\n\nThat amounted to an 11 percent slip in audience following what was already the “worst-rated May on record” in _CBS Mornings_ history, according to the ratings data.\n\nThe dip was short-lived, but nonetheless “alarmed some officials,” since morning shows typically produce the lion’s share of ad revenue for the major news networks, according to Status reporter Oliver Darcy.\n\nChange at _60 Minutes_ , the network’s famed investigative weekly program, has been rapid and corrosive. Late last month, Weiss simultaneously fired executive producer Tanya Simon, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay her report on Trump deportations to the notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. That same day, she appointed Nick Bilton—a former _Vanity Fair_ columnist with no broadcast experience—to lead the venerated newsmagazine.\n\nBut Weiss may not be running the place for much longer. CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, is pursuing a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, a monumental industry shift that could see Weiss’s brief tenure atop the network come to an end, according to some longtime _60 Minutes_ staffers.\n\n“I have a feeling that Bari will not be overseeing 60 Minutes for very much longer. I think once the deal gets done with Warner Bros., people will demand that she be let go or move into another position,” Steve Kroft, a 30-year veteran of the show, told _Variety_ earlier this month. “Everything she’s touched has turned to shit. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s showed any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas.”",
  "title": "CBS Takes Major Nosedive After Bari Weiss’s 60 Minutes Purge"
}