CBS News’ “60 Minutes” drew 6.06 million viewers Sunday, down 12% from a year earlier, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel ratings, following an NFL-boosted rebound the previous week.
The Oct. 11 broadcast also averaged 767,000 adults 25–54, down 19% from the comparable episode last season. Both figures were season lows for the newsmagazine through its first four broadcasts.
The decline came just a week after “60 Minutes” drew 10.2 million viewers, its largest audience since March. But the Oct. 4 broadcast benefited from CBS’ NFL coverage, making a direct week-to-week comparison difficult.
Sunday’s episode aired at 7 p.m. without a national NFL lead-in, facing competition from Fox’s late-afternoon NFL coverage and NBC’s “Football Night in America,” which began at 7:26 p.m. The broadcast gained viewers during the hour, with its audience growing 15% from beginning to end, compared with 2% for the corresponding episode last season, according to Nielsen panel data provided to TheWrap.
The newsmagazine opened its 59th season with 7.94 million viewers, down 21% from a year earlier. Its second episode drew 6.77 million, up 5% year over year.
The fourth episode of the 2025 season drew 6.9 million viewers and 946,000 adults 25–54, according to Nielsen. Historical figures supplied to TheWrap indicate Sunday’s broadcast was the lowest-rated fourth episode of a season in at least 25 years, though the comparison excludes the Oct. 7, 2024 election special, which aired on a Monday and drew approximately 5.7 million viewers. CBS lists that broadcast as the fourth episode of its 57th season.
“60 Minutes” ranked 28th for the week in total viewers, behind CBS dramas “Tracker” (7.35 million) and “Marshals” (6.93 million), according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel Live+Same Day rankings. ABC’s “World News Tonight” averaged 8.22 million viewers across four telecasts, while NBC’s “Nightly News” averaged 6.48 million across four broadcasts.
Sunday’s episode featured reports on the Secret Service, settler violence in the West Bank and musician Jon Batiste.
