During an early March appearance on CNBC, the Paramount Skydance chief executive, David Ellison, cited a statistic he has come to rely on when laying out his editorial approach for CBS News and, potentially, the cable network he has made a deal to own, CNN. The young media mogul said the networks will prioritize reaching “the 70% of Americans and really around the world that identify as center-left, as center-right”.
The idea of an unaddressed center ground is a powerful talking point. In a world of increasingly partisan politics, Ellison’s promise to address the unheard, silent majority packs a punch – and fits nicely with the approach of one of his most high-profile lieutenants, the heterodox commentator Bari Weiss.
Unfortunately, it appears that Ellison’s 70% figure is not supported by publicly available polling data on the ideological orientation of Americans.
A recent YouGov survey – conducted last fall and published in January – found that only 40% of US adult citizens identify as “center-left”, “center” or “center-right”, not 70%.
Polling published by Pew that was conducted last year similarly puts the number at 41% (including those who self-identify as “Lean Democrat”, “No Lean/Refused”, “Lean Republican”), while Gallup data puts the percentage of Americans who identify as Republican-leaning independents, non-leaning independents and Democratic-leaning independents at 45%, which the company said was a “new high”.
These surveys suggest that the audience that Ellison claims to be targeting, while sizable, does not exist to the degree he has suggested. A spokesperson for Paramount Skydance said the company “stands by the stat” but was not able to provide a particular survey that backed up Ellison’s numbers.
Ellison seems to have first cited the statistic when speaking with reporters in August. “We really want to look at the 70% of the country that kind of would define themselves as center-left to center-right and really ensure that it’s a place that can be true to the legacy that we’re inheriting, and we’re going to invest behind that,” he reportedly said.
During a Bloomberg Media conference in October, Ellison invoked the strategy of another media company he had acquired, Weiss’s Free Press.
“What our goal is in news is we want to become the most trusted destination in news media,” Ellison said. “I don’t think it’s a controversial thing to say right now that the civil discourse that currently exists is not in a great place. We basically believe in all the things that the Free Press believed in: which is we want to speak to the 70% of the audience that identifies themselves as center-left to center-right.”
Ellison has used the stat to suggest that the vast majority of Americans are not actually wedded to one political party – and therefore would be open to programming from a more neutral perspective. But according to Gallup’s data from 2025, more than half of Americans – 54% – identify as either Democrats or Republicans, with another 35% characterized as “Republican-leaning independents” or “Democratic-leaning independents”. Pew data has the number of self-identified Republicans or Democrats at 59%.
Daniel Cassino, a professor of government and executive director at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s polling operation, said that Americans have a hard time categorizing their leanings – but that, based on his interpretation of American National Election Study data, about 47% of respondents could broadly be considered in the centrist range.
Looking at the implications for Ellison-owned networks, Cassino said that a centrist-oriented news organization could be successful, but that it would face an uphill battle. “The audience for every news channel is largely going to consist of partisans and people who have relatively extreme partisan views, because they’re the ones who care about political news and follow it,” he said.
During a recent appearance on Katie Couric’s streaming show, the former CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane dismissed the notion that the network was specifically targeting conservative viewers, as had been suggested by a departing producer.
“I don’t think anybody knows how to do that,” MacFarlane said. “There can’t be a plan for how to go: ‘We want to find that 10% of purple, right, conservative, Stark county, Ohio, Macomb county, Michigan, people. The politicians may have a strategy for reaching those people, but television news does not. There’s no formula that works for that.”
The early returns on Ellison-owned and Weiss-run CBS News have not been promising. While 60 Minutes remains a major success, the network’s morning show and flagship evening news program – anchored by Weiss favorite Tony Dokoupil – have struggled mightily. The CBS Evening News averaged about 4 million total viewers in March, a new low for the show.
