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According to the NY Post, the ‘stodgy’ new CBS Evening News anchors received a modest viewership bump for their premier. The broadcast had 5.2 million viewers, a +14% spike from Norah's 2024 average. What I find laughable is the article's extremely negative viewpoint. (I'm laughing, but I'm not surprised because this is the Post, after all) My favorite quote is from the nameless former TV executive who doesn't think "audiences have the capacity to absorb a reporting-led show with lots of segments." Yes, our attention spans have shortened, but not everyone needs the news to be quick hits served with extra flash like Entertainment Tonight. That show has the attention span of a fly. Not bashing ET. There's a place for that, and there's a place for the new CBS Evening News. It is hilarious that people say, "Try something different to stand out," and then, when someone does that, they get bashed for not looking like everyone else. If you want a typical newscast, two broadcast networks offer typical news of the day presentation.

You could make that same argument against the Major Garrett piece that ran on Tuesday, or the Adam Yamaguchi piece that ran today. With that said, I do think both of those pkgs were very well done and illustrative of the larger issue, though it still just feels weird that they can completely ignore what's the lead on literally every other major outlet. I did notice that they moved the "Evening News Roundup" segment up both Tuesday and today to be right after the first story, which is probably a smart move. It seemed a little buried and lost the first day. It's worth a shot for them. And if anyone is going to try this, it's going to be CBS and not the leader. I just can't stress enough how this is perhaps the most radical departure from anything they've ever tried going back to Murrow. This is not the CBS Evening News. It's not a "network nightly news program." This is a fundamentally different type of broadcast altogether. Most striking to me is that based on the first three days, they haven't run sound from any sort of press conference or anything else that could have been picked up by a competitor's camera. They haven't run any sound from the president, and they've run very little sound from other politicians or authorities— not even anything from the fiery RFK confirmation hearing, which they covered today. Instead, they are prioritizing exclusive interviews and stories from real people. That is all good practice and very refreshing, no doubt – it just feels strange in the absence of *any* of the typical meat and potatoes material. Is that going to be a turnon or a turnoff for viewers? I really don't know as that hasn't been tried before by anybody to this extent.

Interestingly Americans viewers tune-in in droves for 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning, but the rest of the news division output is meant to be different? I dont agree. The alignment of the all the CBS news programmes to a similar cerebral, more thoughtful, calmer tone suits me. Miss the old days of Brokaw, Jennings and Rather. I dont hate NBC News as a news division but Nightly News has become headache inducing with the story presentation and tone. ITs disappointing frankly. The bulletpoint style of reading a story is wildly annoying frankly

Since the ICE raids started days before and there were no new substantive developments; I agree with them that it didn't warrant much more than a mention. And the following day, they presented a more comprehensive piece regarding the raids. I appreciate their measured approach when it comes to 'the news of the day.' Giving viewers the same tired rundown of stories, just like everyone else, hasn't worked. If there was ever a time to re-invent the wheel, it's now. I'm not sure they will ever be #1 (or even #2), but they're fully capable of being the most competitive #3 there is. The question is, will that be enough for them???

Well I didnt realize how much of the set was actually screens. It turns out the only part that is real, is the wooden header and the desk. Everything else we see is just graphics on the screens. Even the floor behind the anchor desk is a big screen. Even the coloured lighting on the floor is just graphics. The entire back of the set is all screens and the "Set" can be changed to look like anything instantly. Its the cheapest and easiest way to change the set to look like anything. They dont even have to change the floor. Its literally all screens. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gabriel-almanzar-aa177141_thrilled-to-reveal-the-new-cbs-evening-news-activity-7290079729657757697-o3yd

Absolutely. History has shown that you can't necessarily count on the free market to always serve the public good.

I noticed that was the first thing Maurice said. They seemed to want to make it a point and emphasize that the broadcast would be dedicated to covering the crash .

Interesting to see Kristine Johnson anchoring a CBS News Special Report on the DC plane crash shortly after 10:34 last night. Then Dick Brennan did the local tease at around 10:58, but Kristine anchored the local news solo, with Dick reporting from the newsroom. (Jessica Moore was already in DC specifically to cover the RFK, Jr. nomination hearing, which turned into covering the federal funding freeze and reversal, which then became reporting on the crash.)

It's a conscious effort to air mostly features at the expense of the day's headlines. The strategy is seemingly multifactorial: 1. Try to tap into the same audience attracted to the style of 60M and Sunday Morning 2. Cut costs. Flying correspondents and their production crews all over the country every day on a whim to cover breaking stories is expensive. As to the question about whether the show will be anchored tonight from the site of the plane crash, the reporting on CBS's strategy suggests they'll opt for correspondent-led field coverage over anchoring the show remotely, again, because the latter is expensive. I could alternatively see them sending one anchor to lead coverage from the field while the other anchor stays in studio to anchor the rest of the show, which wouldn't be as costly, but otherwise predictions are that the anchors will remain at the desk. We'll find out tonight.

WTTG coverage on DC crash is solid

Chris Welch is on CBS News 24/7

Good points, but i think all of American media today is a rat race to cover the same thing. CBS's attitude might be, we haven't won trying to keep up with everyone else, they can get that elsewhere, lets be different. To your point I do wonder if viewers will feel like they're missing out when watching this and turn to NBC/ABC to see what happened with say RFK Jr .

Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin anchored a Special Report at 6-6:15am ET.

Lester Holt is on NBC now with a special report. WCBS’ Kristine Johnson was anchoring CBS coverage (on streaming at least).

I believe those are real comments. I'm not nearly as negative on the new show as those comments are, but I get the criticism and share some of it. On Monday, the lead story on CBS's competitors and pretty much every other major national news outlet was the ICE raids. CBS reduced it to barely more than a 10 second mention. Instead, they led with Margaret Brennan on Deepsake as a debrief segment with nothing more than talk and some slick fullscreens. They didn't roll a frame of video or sound until almost four minutes in when they were onto the second story. After watching the first two days, it seems like they're not really chasing the news of the day anymore in favor of fewer, longer enterprise stories. That's a fundamentally different strategy from anything CBS has done before. I'd argue that the Pelley era did the best job of balancing both. It's not a bad program. But is it the newscast of record with news from today? I'm not sure that it is. This is a great show for news junkies and anyone who's already read the major headlines online all day long. I'm not sure if it's a great show for someone who's too busy to keep up with the news and wants to watch a recap of it at dinnertime, and I think most broadcast viewers are probably the latter.

I dont think ive seen all the walls and floor as screens. I didnt realize there was virtually no hard elements. Its very well done graphics from the distance we see it. Because it looked real to me.

Not super shocking when watching the broadcast. The set is so bareboned but I think that’s one of the strengths. I haven’t watched WNT in years but isn’t their set also just a desk and a massive video wall?

Not sure what to make of those comments or if they’re from real people. Comments I’ve read have been mostly positive. Some have grown accustomed to getting a recounting of events instead of being told what the implications of said events are. It’s something that will take a minute to get used to. Like others have said, CBS is on the right track. They just have to keep going and block out the noise.

WJZ Eyewitness News 1980 (Reupload) WMAR 5:30 News Snippet 1980 (Reupload) WTTG The Ten o'clock News 1980 WBAL Action News 1980

Station employee Kevin Spencer has died from apparent suicide, 2 days after his disappearance. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/family-of-kevin-spencer-on-missing-nbc-5-employee-something-is-definitely-wrong/3658418/