Tony Dokoupil began his CBS Evening News tenure earlier than expected due to the military action in Venezuela over the weekend, leading to him anchoring the program on Saturday instead of his regularly scheduled Monday debut.
On Monday, just under 4.5 million viewers tuned into the nightly newscast for Dokoupil’s first edition leading the program.
Of those nearly 4.5 million viewers, 609,000 came from the Persons 25-54 demographic.
While that total viewership figure outpaces what the newscast averaged throughout 2025, it shows steep declines when compared to other debuts for the network.
When Norah O’Donnell began anchoring the CBS Evening News in 2019, the program averaged 5.6 million viewers for her debut episode. That’s 20% higher than the debut of Tony Dokoupil on Monday evening.
Furthermore, the 4.5 million viewership figure marks a 27% decline compared to the premiere of the nightly broadcast being anchored by Scott Pelley in 2011.
In fact, when Katie Couric helmed her debut broadcast as the anchor of the newscast in 2006, there were 4.7 million viewers alone in the Persons 25-54 demographic. In total, 13.6 million viewers watched her initial episode. That marked an 87% decline compared to Dokoupil’s first broadcast and a 67% decline in overall viewers.
CBS Evening News, however, isn’t alone in seeing declining viewership figures for its linear nightly news broadcasts since 2006. ABC News’ World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News have also seen steady decreases in overall viewership during the nearly 20 years since Couric’s debut.
The total viewership figure for the debut of Tony Dokoupil represented a 22% decrease compared to the same day last year.
For the Monday evening broadcast ratings, the David Muir-led World News Tonight led with 8.1 million viewers, while the Tom Llamas-anchored NBC Nightly News averaged an audience of 7.2 million viewers for the night.
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