There was once a time–and it honestly wasn’t THAT long ago–that I was in a position to give sage advice to creatives who were hell-bent on having their own way data be damned. Some of them trusted me enough to actually seek out my counsel after my superiors would direct them to make changes to their prides and joys. Sometimes those confrontations would be adversarial, demanding I give them details on what they were told impacted those choices which they knew came from my team. Occasionally creatives even shared notes that they got from those superiors which clearly took liberties with the actual conclusions we gave them. These would be smoking gun moments where I would feel both surprised and cornered.
Without fail, I would always remind them of this overriding fact: It’s not your network, you’re not in charge and even in success it’s nay impossible to show that it’s specifically because of you that anyone incremental is watching. All we can do is produce data and insights that support a correlation. It’s up to them to decide if they actually want to pay attention. And if they don’t, that’s on them, and whatever consequences might result will be a function of those who are really making the decisions for all of us–the unknown thousands with Nielsen meter remotes.
I truly wish I would have had the chance to offer that insight to 60 MINUTES’ Sharyn Alfonsi when she created the latest brouhaha at the increasingly toxic CBS newsmagazine that produced the latest tea-spilling that naturally THE NEW YORK POST’s Ariel Zilber couldn’t wait to share with her gossip-loving readers earlier this week:
“60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reportedly blew up at a deputy for her boss Bari Weiss after her report on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison was shelved, yelling at the supervisor, “You don’t get to produce me!” Alfonsi also accused the deputy, Adam Rubenstein, of being a “mouthpiece” for the Trump administration during the Jan. 12 meeting, which Weiss also attended, according to Puck News.
Alfonsi was reportedly resistant to Weiss’s repeated requests for alterations to the segment, which were relayed from the boss through intermediaries including “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon. The reporter “dug in” as Weiss “made her frustrations well known to friends and fellow executives,” Puck News reported, with one source calling the situation a “hostage standoff.” While the editor in chief “repeatedly” asked for updates, Alfonsi “refused to provide” them, a move that the boss and her team began to see as insubordinate, according to the outlet.
You probably wouldn’t be surprised to see what Zilber’s fellow yenta Alexandra Steigrad pushed out mere hours later:
Maybe call it “Game of Microphones.” “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Scott Pelley’s vocal pushback against CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss’ moves to shake up the outlet have put the duo at risk of being fired, The Post has learned. Both veteran correspondents could get the boot as Weiss, who has run the network since October, works to revamp “60 Minutes,” said sources with knowledge of the matter — who compared the ongoing intrigue to “Game of Thrones”-style drama. Pelley has put a target on his back for a drumbeat of commentary criticizing CBS News’ new leadership, sources said.
And what Zilber happily regurgitated what had been previously shared only among the lucky elite who can afford to subscribe to the Belloni-verse it’s eminently clearer why this shakeup appears to be imminent:
Alfonsi also asked Rubenstein if he had ever produced a minute of television news in his career, according to Puck. It stated that Rubenstein replied he did indeed — “at which point Sharyn almost left the room.”
Were I in those rooms, I would likely sheepishly remind them that the “S” in CBS doesn’t stand for Sharyn or Scott. And, like me, they are not beyond being replaced. I’m certain Alfonsi doesn’t have access to minute-by-minute ratings that would even hint at the suggestion that her pristine stories have driven viewership, and Pelley has mixed receipts showing how popular he was when his name was on the CBS EVENING NEWS. As his CBS biography reminds:
From 2011 to 2017, Scott served as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News.” By 2016, Pelley had added 1.5 million viewers, the longest and largest stretch of growth at the evening news since Walter Cronkite.
But as THE LOS ANGELES TIMES’ Stephen Battaglio reported in September 2017, at least a third of that growth had evaporated after that peak, which one might logically concluded could have had something to do with the news cycle that started with the descent down the Golden Escalator. And that’s in spite of some shenanigans that AWFUL ANNOUNCING’s Andrew Bucholtz brought to light earlier that summer that CBS, along with its competitors, was doing its best to dance around some of those declines.
To be fair, Pelley’s doing a helluva better than the guy who sits in that seat now, and perhaps he and Alfonsi might have been feeling their oats in the wake of the nonstop coverage of how he’s faring, which TV INSIDER’s Alyssa Norwin even-handedly provided yesterday:
Evening news ratings for the week of January 12 are in, including an update on how Tony Dokoupil fared in his second week as anchor of CBS Evening News. Dokoupil improved a bit from his first week on the air in the evening news slot.
In Dokoupil’s second week, CBS Evening News averaged 4.19 million total viewers, with 584,000 in the 25-54 adult demo, per The Hollywood Reporter. This was up from his first week, where he struggled a bit to get his footing with 4.17 million viewers and 533,000 adults in the 25-54 demographic. Dokoupil’s best night of the week was Monday, January 12, where he drew in 6.38 million viewers. However, ABC’s numbers were also way up on that night (10.88 million viewers), which was likely due to NBC’s evening news program being preempted for NBA coverage, forcing their loyal viewers to tune into one of the other networks.
In 2025, the first two weeks in January brought in an average of 5.13 million viewers and 729,000 adults in the 25-54 demo at CBS Evening News, so Dokoupil’s numbers are still down from where the network was a year ago.
So take heart, S & S. Your inexperienced whippersnapper boss is hardly creating an impressive track record of her own, and even her wins are heavily asterisked. But until further notice, she’s in charge. And I have a hunch she’s already looking at at least one potential replacement who perhaps with the help of the same kind of experienced producers you rely upon might just be polished enough to share his talents with a wider and older audience. THE NATIONAL NEWS DESK’s Elaine Mallon is taking note:
Amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to acquire Greenland, YouTuber Nick Shirley visited the Arctic territory and filmed a video centered around Greenland residents’ opinions about becoming a United States territory.
“Now more than ever the US is becoming closer to acquiring Greenland,” Shirley wrote on X. “The US has made multiple attempts to acquire Greenland dating back to 1946, now President Trump says a “framework deal” is in place. I went to Greenland to speak with the Greenlanders to see what they have to say about potentially joining the US.”
This, of course, in the wake of his better-known “citizen journalist” effort which Mallon’s colleage Jessica A. Botelho updated her readers on yesterday:
In December, Shirley shared a video on YouTube and other platforms in which he said multiple daycare centers in the city run by members of the Somali community had fraudulently collected millions in government aid. The footage put him in the nation’s spotlight — and he hired security because he fears his life might be in danger. Shirley previously said he received a threat that he would be “Kirked,” which was a reference to the September assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
And in the wake of what happened to another citizen journalist in Minneapolis yesterday, Shirley might just be looking for a somewhat safer gig.
It’s easy to dismiss someone like Shirley as too young, inexperienced and inconsequential to matter to a world as established and entitled as 60 MINUTES. I used to that as well–until I was confronted with a younger boss who didn’t like what I had to say. I was encouraged to “train” two people each half my age and collectively less than half my salary just before I was dismissed as soon as my determined employer could conclude I had sufficiently recovered from my near-death experience. Physically, I’m find, but don’t think even now I’m fully recovered emotionally.
As of this writing, Shirley’s Minnesota fraud video is up to 3,853,775 views. That’s in the neighborhood of how many average viewers are watching Dokoupil. And yes, I know that a YouTube view isn’t a Nielsen viewer, but based on some other changes that went down in David Ellison’s circle of trust this week that small fact may not matter. BUSINESS INSIDER’s James Faris provided that news on what was clearly an exceptionally busy Thursday earlier this week which fortunately he shared without a paywall on his LinkedIn page:
Paramount‘s data and insights team is getting a shakeup, as CEO David Ellison’s tech vision comes into focus. Jason Kim will soon oversee data for the entire company, instead of just the streaming division, Paramount leadership told staffers in a meeting two hours ago, which I got a recording of. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for Jason — and for the team overall — to start playing a bigger role for what’s happening at Paramount as we move forward,” Domenic DiMeglio said in the meeting.
Kim’s own LinkedIn shows that he has overseen data and analytics teams at Hulu and Amazon Studios prior to his current tenure of nearly four years on the Paramount digital side. I’d hoping he’s at least open to understanding the meaning and relevance of TV metrics, but my own experience suggests that’s not likely. In which case, I might advise those obsessing over Dokoupil’s plight that they may be speaking Latin when there’s clearly an ongoing shift to more modern languages. It’s Jason Kim’s job now, and at least right now he seems to have the support of being the internal counsel I once was.
But fear not, S & S. You might actually have a way to actually establish your own “network” after all. As DEADLINE’s Dade Hayes shared on Friday:
Substack, whose text-based subscription platform has reshaped the media business since launching nearly a decade ago, has launched a TV app. The app is in beta and is thus far only available on Apple TV and Google TV. In a blog post announcing the move, the start-up dropped several names, saying viewers would be able to watch videos from the likes of Dolly Parton, political commentators and authors George Saunders and Tina Brown… A number of notable figures from TV news, including former CNN anchor and reporter Jim Acosta, have migrated to the platform. MSNBC alum Medhi Hasan, who is founder and CEO of media startup Zeteo, has praised Substack as a viable and remunerative response to the fragmentation and decline of traditional media.
Just be savvy enough to set your sights and expectations for engagement to reasonable levels. You can start with mine. Remember, any one of us can be replaced.
Until next time…