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CBS staffers are spilling the tea on a “bloodbath” taking place among their ranks following the resignation of former CEO Wendy McMahon.
McMahon, who announced her departure amid disagreements with executives from parent company Paramount, was the dam holding back a flood of firings taking place now that she’s gone. At the top of the new hierarchy sits anchor Gayle King, whom staffers say they deeply “resent” for doing little to let Paramount run roughshod over the network’s news division.
King garnered international attention last month for participating in the first all-female trip to space, sitting alongside Lauren Sánchez, Katy Perry, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, and Kerianne Flynn on Blue Origin’s New Shepherd rocket. But back on planet Earth, those left behind say King metaphorically abandoned a network on the brink of ruin.
Employees described fears about their career futures at CBS amid an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, compounded by the threat of a $20 billion lawsuit by President Donald Trump. McMahon’s resignation followed that of Bill Owens, the longtime producer of “60 Minutes,” who balked at Paramount’s exercise of new editorial discretion over which anti-Trump stories the Sunday night news program would be allowed to run.
In a letter announcing her departure, McMahon told the remaining employees, “It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It’s time to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”
A person with the “60 Minutes” team told the Daily Mail, “It’s marquee name after marquee name. People don’t want to say it out loud in the office but the entire space debacle really hurt us. Gayle being part of that is not a good look for our brand.” They added, “I think a lot of people resent Gayle for that. I know I do.”
Another producer with “The Early Show” described the humiliation they felt after watching King rocket into space at the height of CBS’s dysfunction.
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“I almost feel like apologizing when I tell people where I work. I hate it here,” the producer admitted.
The “ticking time bomb” atmosphere is most prevalent at “60 Minutes” due to the show’s centrality to Trump’s lawsuit. Another staffer there said the threat of more layoffs is an everyday occurrence.
“We’re in the middle of a bloodbath. The axe is falling, people are leaving, no one knows what to do next. We’re all updating our resumes because it really feels like this is a sinking ship,” the source said.
Rather than band together, CBS employees now seem to “fight” over the smallest disagreements, another told the Daily Mail. This includes “arguing over everything and anything” from the length of stories to seating plans in the conference room.
Hosts like King, who pull in an average of $10 million a year, are finding their salaries harder to justify amid flailing ratings, especially in key audience demographics. King’s salary was already cut in 2024, down from $13 million annually.
“This could be Gayle’s last year,” one source told the Tiffany Network.
