The headlines coming out of CBS News will soon be guided by a new executive.
Neeraj Khemlani, who arrived at the Paramount Global unit in 2021 to oversee CBS News and local stations along with Wendy McMahon, is leaving his role running the unit that produces “60 Minutes,” “CBS Evening News” and “Face The Nation,” among other programs. Khemlani told CBS News staffers Sunday that he has decided to exit and will instead pursue a new multi-year first-look deal with CBS that has him developing content including books for Simon & Schuster, documentaries and scripted series.
Many senior news executives and anchors sign contracts for three years or more. Khemlani has during a two-years-plus tenure helped to rework CBS News’ morning programming; eliminate divisions between the linear news staff and CBS News streaming operations; bolster its investigative unit; and inject new talent into the famously insular division, including Robert Costa, Natalie Morales and Cecilia Vega. Under his aegis, staffers at CBS News had been gearing up for the 2024 presidential election cycle, and had in April unveiled a new streaming program that featured a roundtable of Washington correspondents hashing out the latest political news.
“We maintained the #1 position of our iconic weekend programs, successfully developed and launched business plans to grow digital revenue that will sustain CBS News for the next generation, and elevated and promoted so many of the people who work here day after day to deliver on our journalistic mission,” Khemlani said in a memo. “I’m so proud of what all of you have accomplished — the scores of journalistic wins, the superb storytelling, the creativity that enhanced every aspect of our programming — that has put this division on a stronger path forward.” He said he was “looking forward to slipping my reporter’s notebook back into my pocket and heading out on a new adventure.”
Khemlani came to CBS after a stint as a senior executive at Hearst, and had earlier in his career also been a producer at “60 Minutes.” He wasted no time probing the financials of CBS News’ programs, according to staffers familiar with the matter, and was dogged during his tenure by reports of speaking brusquely to producers and executives.
The shake-up is the second of CBS News’ command structure since 2021 under the aegis of parent corporation Paramount Global, which was formed in 2019 out of the merger of the companies known previously as Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. The previous CBS News chief, the veteran producer Susan Zirinsky, took the reins of the unit in 2019, a bid by CBS executives to put an end to a chaotic period that saw the departures of anchor Charlie Rose and executive Jeff Fager amid claims about their behavior. Both men denied allegations made about them.
Khemlani “put new business plans in place to drive more revenue, which is essential in a challenging environment for all media companies,” said George Cheeks, CEO of CBS, in a memo. He said he and Khelmani had been discussing “his potential transition for some time.”
McMahon, a veteran of both CBS and ABC who has spent more time focused on CBS’ local-stations business, is widely seen as a leading candidate to assume Khemlani’s duties at CBS News, according to three familiar with the matter. Paramount Global and CBS could name a replacement as soon as Monday afternoon. Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, who oversees all newsgathering at CBS News, could be poised to gain new responsibilities, according to these three people.
Khemlani’s departure marks the latest in a series by top TV-news executives, a sign of how much more difficult the operating environment has become for staples of television programming as more viewers shift from linear consumption to streaming video on demand. Chris Licht, a former CBS News executive who became CEO of CNN, was ousted in June after a tumultuous reign. Noah Oppenheim, who enjoyed a six-year tenure as president of NBC News, left the company in January after a reorganization of NBCUniversal’s news operations.
Despite its ties to the earliest eras of the TV business, news is seen as a key in a new age. Media companies have placed new emphasis on their news divisions to attract the big, live audiences that advertisers and distributors continue to crave while more consumers migrate to streaming. Both ABC and NBC have in recent years filled some of their daytime schedules with news programming, rather than soap operas or syndicated fare. And yet, journalism aficionados have a new array of rivals vying for their attention. More people are getting their news from streaming-video sources. A 2022 survey from Pew Research Center found that about 53% of Americans prefer to get their news via a digital device, compared to 33% for TV and just 5% for print.
But his maneuvers bolstered CBS News, which has long had a reputation of not always welcoming outsiders.
To be sure, two of its mainstay programs, “CBS Evening News” and the weekday edition of “CBS Mornings,” remain in third place behind rivals ABC and NBC. Yet they have gained new traction. Khemlani reworked the trio at the helm of “CBS Mornings,” pairing Gayle King with former football player Nate Burleson and correspondent Tony Dokoupil, and linking the show with CBS News’ weekend programs, which include the venerable “Sunday Morning.” During the week of July 31, the weekday morning broadcast, which has long run in third place, was less than 400,000 viewers behind NBC’s “Today.” CBS News has also narrowed the gap between its “CBS Evening News,” anchored by Norah O’Donnell, and its rivals “NBC Nightly News” and ABC’s “World News Tonight” among viewers between 25 and 54, the demographic favored most by advertisers in news programs.
Khemlani’s successor will no doubt focus on preparing for coverage of the run-up to the 2024 election. Each new White House cycle is viewed as a potential boon for TV news, as debates, primaries, conventions and election coverage tends to draw broader viewership. Paramount Global has also pressed CBS News and its local stations to create a broader news product that mixes national coverage with regional journalism, part of a bid to compete for digital audiences. If that sounds like a tough assignment for CBS News anchors like Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell, imagine what it might be like for the executive to whom they report.
