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Brian Steinberg
Senior TV Editor
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Courtesy of CBS News Was it football, or the overhaul?
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.
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