Bari Weiss could be out at CBS News after Paramount-Warner Bros. merger as insider says ‘entire industry is laughing’ at ‘abysmal launch numbers’
Bari Weiss‘ future at CBS News could be in question once Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is completed, an industry insider claims, as the network’s flagship news programs struggle to grow their audiences.
“Everyone is wondering how soon it will take the Ellisons to pull the plug once the merger goes through,” the insider told Wonderwall.com. “CBS is desperately trying to spin these abysmal launch numbers as a win when the entire industry is laughing at yet the third failure on Bari’s record.”
Weiss, 42, was named editor-in-chief of CBS News in October 2025 following Paramount’s acquisition of her media company, The Free Press. Since then, the network has made significant changes to several of its marquee programs including 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings.
But the ratings picture is more complicated than the insider’s assessment suggests.
Ratings tell a mixed story
The season premiere of 60 Minutes, which included an interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, averaged 7.94 million viewers — a 21 percent drop from the previous year’s premiere, according to Nielsen figures reported by USA Today.
The broadcast was also down 33 percent among adults 25 to 54, a key demographic for news programming.
But there was another factor at play. The newsmagazine traditionally benefits from a large NFL audience immediately before it, and its football lead-in was also down significantly compared with the previous year’s season premiere.
The following week’s episode featured an exclusive interview with Patrick Clancy, whose ex-wife is accused of killing their three young children in 2023, and averaged 6.77 million viewers, The Hollywood Reporter reported, citing Nielsen figures. Although that was down from the premiere, it was up 5 percent in total viewers and 18 percent among adults 25 to 54 compared with the second episode of the previous season.
There was no new 60 Minutes on September 27. CBS preempted the program for its broadcast of the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, with the next new episode scheduled for October 4.
CBS’s other flagship news shows are struggling
The ratings challenges at CBS News extend beyond 60 Minutes.
Weiss tapped Tony Dokoupil to take over the CBS Evening News anchor desk in January as part of an overhaul of the broadcast, which has long trailed ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News.
The Evening News is now averaging fewer than 4 million viewers a night, which is about where its audience stood before Dokoupil took over, according to The Los Angeles Times.
CBS Mornings, another perennial third-place program, has also struggled this year, hitting record audience lows, according to the Times.
The network is already making changes. Former CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell returned to CBS Mornings in September alongside Gayle King and Nate Burleson as part of a planned revamp that is expected to include a faster pace and more live interviews.
Merger could reshape Weiss’ future
Paramount CEO David Ellison, who hired Weiss in October 2025 after his company acquired her media startup, would gain control of CNN if the deal is completed. But earlier reporting suggested Weiss could emerge from the merger with an even larger role. In June, Reuters reported that Paramount was searching for a business-side executive to work alongside Weiss, citing reporting from Axios. If the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition went through, Weiss would oversee editorial operations at both CBS News and CNN while the new executive would handle business operations at the two news organizations, according to Axios. At the time, Axios also reported that Weiss’ position was secure despite separate reports that Paramount executives were considering ways to limit her authority over linear television coverage. The picture could now be changing, according to Wonderwall.com‘s insider, who claims Weiss’ ratings performance has put her future at the network in doubt once the merger is completed.
60 Minutes has undergone major changes
The ratings debate comes after months of changes at 60 Minutes, where several prominent figures have departed.
Executive producer Bill Owens stepped down in April, saying he had lost the independence necessary to run the broadcast. The following month, CBS replaced executive producer Tanya Simon with Nick Bilton and fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
Longtime correspondent Scott Pelley was fired in June after Bilton accused him in a staff memo of disrupting his first meeting with the 60 Minutes team and treating him with “remarkable incivility and contempt.”
This is a devastating interview.
Scott Pelley tells the NYT that Bari Weiss directly put a “thumb on the scale” for Trump over the killing of Renee Good.
Here’s his explanation of exactly what happened. pic.twitter.com/Kh56P1q7rM— Niall Stanage (@NiallStanage) June 7, 2026
Anderson Cooper, who had contributed to the program for two decades while continuing his work at CNN, also left 60 Minutes this year.
Wonderwall.com‘s insider speculates that the combination of those changes and the program’s uneven start to the new season could ultimately work against Weiss.
“60 Minutes used to be the most-watched news show in television and now it’s being outranked by weekday editions of World News Tonight,” the insider said. “It’s one thing to deliver a dip in ratings and it’s another to totally submarine the most valuable brand in news.”