Nolte: Norah O’Donnell’s ‘CBS Evening News’ Plunges in Ratings

In original, "CBS This Morning" co-hosts Norah O'Donnell and Charlie Rose participate in t
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

After six weeks at the helm of the CBS Evening News, newly installed anchor Norah O’Donnell has lost hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Why in the world the executives at CBS felt it was a good idea to put the far-left Norah O’Donnell in the CBS Evening News anchor chair is beyond anyone’s guess. Let’s face it… She reminds men of their first wife. She reminds women of their ex-husband’s second wife. She exudes all the warmth of a Minnesota fire hydrant in February.

But who are we plebes to question the Big Brains at CBS News, whose evening newscast and morning show have been in last place for decades…? What the hell do we know?

After all, doesn’t it make perfect sense to promote O’Donnell, the anchor who couldn’t lift CBS This Morning out of last place, into the evening anchor chair?

Hey, look at how well that worked out for CNNLOL. After failing as a morning show host, Chris Cuomo is now failing as an evening show host.

Brilliant.

Anyway, prior to O’Donnell, there was a guy named Jeff Glor sitting in the CBS anchor chair. He was also in last place, but in her first six weeks in that chair, the ridiculously unappealing O’Donnell has actually managed to attract fewer viewers — a lot fewer, like hundreds of thousands fewer…

NewsBusters reports:

For O’Donnell’s first week (the week of July 15), TVNewser found that “[t]he ratings results for launch week of the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell were mixed. The broadcast posted audience losses from the comparable week in 2018, and was down slightly from the prior week.”

“Versus the comparable week in 2018,” it was calculated that O’Donnell’s first week at the helm lost 247,000 viewers, or minus five percent of their total viewership. They were also down 13 percent in the critical 25-54 age demographic.

The following week saw a 16 percent(!) collapse in total viewers, from 5.614 million viewers to just 4.736 million, year-over-year.

Over the next two weeks, while ABC’s evening news telecast increased its total viewership by three percent and NBC only dropped six percent, CBS took a double-digit dive of 12 percent.

And on and on it went like that until the most recent week on record — the week of August 19 — ended with a ten percent year-over-year drop in total viewers for O’Donnell and a 13 percent loss in the 25-54 age demo.

Man, I sure hope CBS didn’t make this decision based on — you know, Woke.

Is the network so far out of touch it believes Twitter is real life? Did the CBS suits dump a guy who was at least attracting five million viewers regularly and replace him with a girl just because she’s a girl to appease a bunch of people screaming for a girl, who had no intention of watching the CBS Evening News even if it hired a girl?

Gee, I hope so because that would be hilarious.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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