Tony Dokoupils fill-in Matt Gutman reels in best ratings for CBS Evening News in months

“CBS Evening News” scored its best weekly audience in months — as struggling anchor Tony Dokoupil was on vacation.The show averaged 4.1 million viewers for the week of July 27, according to Nielsen, marking the show’s best performance in 17 weeks and the first time the “Evening News” has topped the 4 million-viewer mark since late March.The upbeat numbers came as Matt Gutman filled in for Dokoupil, who has struggle to keep the show’s ratings above 4 million in recent months, “It’s a bad sign for Tony when your substitute anchor reels in over 100,000 more viewers than you,” a CBS source said, going on to speculate: “If this trend continues, [CBS News Editor-in-Chief] Bari Weiss will have to think about changing anchors.”The source said that when Dokoupil returns to the chair, he’ll have to hit the ground running and keep viewership above 4 million — or else it’s a “clear indication” that the audience prefers Gutman –“even if it’s a small sample.”A CBS News insider said all network newscasts had more viewers the week of July 27 when compared to the week of July 20.Aside from the gain of 100,000 viewers for Gutman, he also beat Doukoupil in the advertiser-coveted demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds.For the week of July 27, Gutman pulled in 570,000 viewers in the demo versus Dokoupil’s 516,000 total, a week earlier.What’s more, “CBS Evening News” has struggled to consistently hit over 4 million viewers since Weiss launched a major overhaul of the show earlier this year, which included installing Dokoupil.While the anchor hit 4 million viewers during the week of June 22, he hasn’t exceeded that threshold since averaging 4.2 million viewers during the week of March 30, according to Status, which first reported the latest ratings.One CBS staffer chalked Gutman’s ratings jump up to “the curse of Tony Dokoupil,” a saying inside the halls of the network that refers to a series of misfortunes that have befallen the new ...