Key Points
- “60 Minutes” has posted lower ratings since CBS News pulled a completed segment on El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
- The program failed to top 10 million viewers in early January, with sharp declines in the key A18-49 demographic.
- The controversy follows editorial decisions under CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and heightened scrutiny of the show.
The Bari Weiss era at CBS News is off to a rocky start for the network’s flagship news magazine program “60 Minutes,” which has logged lower ratings since a scandal erupted over her handling of a long-planned story on an El Salvadorian prison called CECOT that is linked to allegations of abuse and torture.
That story was pulled just a few hours before 60 Minutes was scheduled to air on December 15, with Weiss eventually explaining the decision as one intended to give the story more time to develop. It had already secured the normal sign-offs from producers, fact-checkers and the legal department at the network, according to reports.
The episode otherwise went ahead as scheduled, and attracted 10.35 million overall viewers, helping 60 Minutes maintain its position as the top non-sports program in the country. The following week, a special edition of the show scheduled for the holidays, called “60 Minutes Presents,’ attracted substantially lower ratings, pulling in just 4.89 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.
The audience drop was predictable, since 60 Minutes usually re-broadcasts older segments under the “60 Minutes Presents” banner during holiday weekends, when the network expects fewer people to be watching television.
But a comparable broadcast of 60 Minutes aired on January 4 proved the news program’s ratings woes were not a one-off during the holidays: That airing attracted 8.973 million viewers, marking a rare occasion that the show didn’t break the 10 million mark. When compared to its mid-December broadcast, the overall audience of 60 Minutes dropped 15 percent.
Television networks typically sell advertising opportunities based on demographics of viewers. CBS, like its peer broadcast networks, generally tries to attract as many viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 years old (A18-49), the group considered to have a higher degree of brand loyalty and stronger purchasing power.
CBS has little to celebrate on that front either, with its A18-49 audience dropping 30 percent since the CECOT story scandal erupted in mid-December, falling from 1.872 million viewers on December 15 to just 1.297 million by January 4.
Despite social media rumors, the January 4 broadcast did not include the CECOT story, which is widely available online after it accidentally streamed on a platform owned by Global in Canada. Executives at the network haven’t said when the story will air on television.
In the story, former inmates complained of alleged abuse and torture at CECOT, with many restating allegations that had been made by human rights organizations over the past several years. In March, the Trump administration announced it was paying the Salvadorian government $6 million per year to house more than 300 deported men who were suspected of belonging to a trans-national criminal group.
A story aired by CBS News in April found most of the men deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration had no criminal record. The story aired about four months before CBS parent company Paramount Global finished its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, which required sign-offs from the Trump administration and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
