Tuesday, September 15, 2026

“60 Minutes” Ratings Disaster: Early Figures Suggest Lowest Premiere Numbers Since at Least 2000 After Months of Negative Publicity

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Early numbers for “60 Minutes” on Sunday night are not good.

So far, it looks like 7.7 million viewers tuned in for the 59th season premiere.

This came after months of negative publicity with CBS News chief Bari Weiss firing three correspondents, and another, Anderson Cooper, leaving.

Despite a very good segment from Lesley Stahl about presidential pardons, the rest of Sunday’s show was soft. Norah O’Donnell’s fighter pilot piece came off like a press release from Pete Hegseth.

Last year’s premiere by comparison, scored 10 million viewers.

Last night’s key demo was also way down to 1.5 million viewers among adults ages 25–54, down 33% from last year.

It won’t be until this afternoon that we know the actual numbers for Sunday. But the preliminary ones are not encouraging.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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