CBS Evening News has seen a significant drop in viewers since Norah O’Donnell left the program earlier this year. New Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss is reportedly looking at Fox News anchor Bret Baier as someone who can help fix the issue.
According to a report from Status’ Oliver Darcy, Weiss would like to ink Baier to a deal to anchor the venerable nightly news program.
However, Darcy notes that Bret Baier is in the midst of a multi-year contract with Fox News, making a deal to shift to CBS difficult.
The report also says that Weiss has considered internal candidates like Tony Dokoupil as well as kicking the tires on asking O’Donnell to return to the newscast as ways to invigorate the sagging ratings.
O’Donnell left the program in the days following the presidential inauguration. At the time of her exit, the nightly newscast averaged more than 5 million viewers per night, while still sitting behind ABC News’ World News Tonight with David Muir and NBC Nightly News, which was then anchored by Lester Holt.
In the most recent week, CBS Evening News averaged 3.7 million viewers, while the NBC News show — now anchored by Tom Llamas — averaged 5.7 million viewers, and the ABC News program featured 7.7 million.
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