Maurice DuBois has been a steady presence in New York living rooms for more than two decades, delivering the day’s biggest stories with calm authority and an unmistakable ease.
That’s why, according to Variety, news of his impending exit from CBS News landed with genuine shock across the city.
On Thursday, December 4, DuBois confirmed via Instagram that December 18 will mark his final day at the network, marking the end of a 21-year chapter spent largely at CBS-owned stations, most notably WCBS-TV.
For longtime viewers, DuBois isn’t just another anchor—he’s a trusted fixture of New York news. His composed delivery, even during breaking or disturbing headlines, helped define his reputation.
His exit comes amid significant turbulence at CBS News. The shakeups stem largely from changes made to CBS Evening News, which underwent a format revamp intended to deemphasize hard-breaking stories.
The results were immediate—and unfavorable. Ratings dropped, putting the broadcast well behind its competitors. For five days ending November 28, CBS Evening News averaged roughly 4.26 million viewers, trailing NBC’s Nightly News and ABC’s World News Tonight by wide margins. Among viewers aged 25–54, a key demographic for advertisers, CBS lagged even further.
DuBois had been co-anchoring the broadcast alongside John Dickerson, an unconventional pairing that combined DuBois’s smooth delivery with Dickerson’s more energetic style. But Dickerson announced in October that he, too, planned to exit the program—another sign that the ground was shifting under CBS News.
Behind the scenes, CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, has been reworking its news division amid broader cost-cutting efforts.
The appointment of Bari Weiss as editor in chief signaled a willingness to break from tradition, even as reports suggest that efforts to recruit high-profile replacements have been complicated by existing contracts elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the network has seen other prominent local anchors step away, including Jim Donovan in Philadelphia and Elliott Rodriguez in Miami.