CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil posted a cbs evening news ratings increase for the week of May 11, 2026, rising in both total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo. The newscast averaged 3.806 million viewers and 503,000 in the key demographic, its first finish above 500,000 demo viewers since the week of April 27.
The CBS broadcast was up 3 percent in total viewers from the previous week and 6 percent in Adults 25-54. Against the same period in 2025, it was up 1 percent in total viewers and flat in the demo. For a program that had hit worrying record lows in recent months, the week offered a small but real rebound.
That improvement still left CBS far behind the evening leader. ABC World News Tonight with David Muir averaged 7.889 million total viewers and 962,000 Adults 25-54, finishing No. 1 on all of television in total viewers and holding the top spot in evening news in both measured categories. NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas averaged 5.97 million total viewers and 831,000 Adults 25-54, down 3 percent and 8 percent from the previous week, but still well ahead of CBS.
The week of May 11 was shaped in part by special coverage of President Donald Trump’s visit to China, and the comparison points matter because the weekly average for NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News is based on four days. Friday’s May 15 broadcasts were retitled and excluded from the weekly and season averages, leaving the networks to live and die on a shorter sample.
Even with that caveat, CBS had reason to welcome the numbers. The network’s evening newscast was not closing the gap on ABC, but it was moving in the right direction after a stretch of weak results. The answer to whether the show has bottomed out is no longer abstract: for one week, at least, the audience stopped falling and nudged back up.
