"CBS This Morning" is already seeing bigger returns with its new Gayle King-led anchor team.
According to Nielsen, which tabulates ratings data, the morning show posted 3.1 million total viewers during the first week of the new lineup, which includes Anthony Mason and Tony Dokoupil. The prior week with the old lineup, which included Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson, saw 3 million viewers.
Nielsen said that new lineup scored more viewers in the key 25-to-54-year-old group than the previous week, too. The final week of the old guard drew 749,000 viewers from the key group, whereas the new show saw 760,000 viewers.
While the improved numbers are certainly a welcome sign for CBS, the show still has an uphill climb to get to ABC's "Good Morning America" and NBC's "Today," which both manage to bring in about a million more viewers.
Still, CBS knows that Gayle is a star, and they paid big bucks to make sure she stayed with the network. Page Six reported on May 4 that Gayle inked a death worth at least $11 million a year, which was more than double her previous salary.
There have been a lot of moving parts at CBS of late. In addition to the "CBS This Morning" staff changes, O'Donnell is set to replace Jeff Glor as the lead anchor of the "CBS Evening News," something she'd reportedly lobbied for. She is also getting an expanded role on "60 Minutes," the network's flagship program.
While speaking about the talent shakeup on the morning show, Gayle said earlier this month, "This is a business about ratings and when the ratings don't work, they make changes. And so they're making changes that they hope lead to better things."