‘60 Minutes’ Season Debut Sees 21% Drop in Ratings: Is NFL or CBS News to Blame?

Ratings for the critical first episode of the new season of “60 Minutes” appear to have been tackled — by a weaker-than-expected lead-in from an NFL game on CBS, leaving open the question of whether sweeping changes made to the newsmagazine by CBS News management in recent months have spurred some portion of its regular audience to stop watching.

The audience for the first telecast of the show’s 59th season fell 21% from last year’s season kick off, according to data from Nielsen, a drop of more than 2 million viewers — resulting in an audience of about 7.94 million, compared with nearly 10.02 million from last year’s open. Meanwhile, viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, the demographic most coveted by advertisers in news programming, fell 33% from year-ago figures, according to Nielsen, to about 1.58 million, compared to 2.36 million for last year’s season premiere.

The average overall audience for “60 Minutes” last season was 8.16 million, according to Nielsen, and 1.32 million in the 25-to-54 demo.

Despite the reduced numbers, the telecast stood as the week’s most-watched news program and most-watched non-sports primetime program. “We are so proud of the exceptional journalism on display in our season premiere and we can’t wait to bring our audience another amazing show this coming Sunday,’ CBS News said in a statement Tuesday.

The NFL lead-in game snared a smaller audience as well, 18.4 million, compared with 23.7 million for the first Sunday telecast in 2025, according to Nielsen data. Executives at CBS News are encouraged that “60 Minutes” held to a greater percentage of the football audience this year over last, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The results are still disappointing. CBS News appeared to have a boost from its Sunday-afternoon NFL match, with the Minnesota Vikings seizing control of the contest from the Green Bay Packers deep in the fourth quarter. And CBS News remains under pressure to demonstrate the program can continue to bring in the same audience after a chaotic off-season overhaul orchestrated by Bari Weiss, CBS News’ editor in chief forced out popular correspondents Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alofnsi and Cecilia Vega.

According to granular Nielsen data that examined each 15-minute chunk of the telecast, Sunday’s “60 Minutes” initially snared an audience of 9.4 million, then saw the crowd slip to 6.7 million in the final 15 minutes.

Despite the lackluster football ratings, the “60 Minutes” telecast is the first season premiere of the show after 2000 to secure fewer than nine million total viewers and two million adults between 25 and 54.