The universe can be cruel.
Tony Dokoupil sold his soul to work for Bari Weiss as anchor of the CBS Evening News in January. He’s followed Weiss into a deep hole, pushing Trump’s agenda and featuring his team of whack job lunatics. His performance has been embarrassing and detrimental to his career.
Now comes the kicker. Dokoupil was off last week, and Matt Gutman — brought over from ABC’s World News Tonight — subbed in. The result was Gutman’s week getting the biggest ratings in 17 weeks, the first time the show has broken 4 million viewers. It’s still number three, but this is a jolt.
It’s not like viewers were suddenly warming up to Dokoupil and thought he’d be on screen when they tuned. They knew right away he was off, and that Gutman had taken over. The face is, Dokoupil has lost all credibility with the viewers who were still counting on CBS News to overcome the Weiss-Ellison attack.
It’s also not as thought they love Gutman. But by the point he arrived anyone would have been popular. It was just a relief to see Weiss’s puppet not in the anchor seat.
Dokoupil will maybe learn a lesson here. When he returns on Monday, the party is over. Now his replacement is preferred. He must earn respect from the audience and push back against Weiss, even if it means he loses his job — if he wants another one.
Again, last week’s ratings according to AdWeek were 4.127 million total viewers and 570,000 demo viewers. CBS News’ newscast grew by 4% in total viewers and 10% in the key age demo compared to the previous week. Its year-ago week numbers showed CBS Evening News gaining viewers by 8% among total viewers and 3% in the demo.
