Paramount Layoffs Hit CBS News

“CBS Saturday Morning” is poised to become the first major casualty of the sweeping cuts hitting CBS News on Wednesday, The Post has learned.

The 28-year-old show, which airs nationwide on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET, has been slated for a radical revamp by CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss and the network’s president Tom Cibrowski, sources close to the situation said.

Co-anchors Michelle Miller, Dana Jacobson and the show’s executive producer Brian Applegate have been informed and are on their way out, sources close to the situation said.

It couldn’t immediately be learned when the final episode will air, including whether the show will broadcast this coming Saturday. It was also unclear whether CBS will seek to revive the broadcast in another form.

Sources close to the situation noted that CBS’s new bosses Weiss and Cibrowski — who have been tapped by CBS owner Paramount Skydance to overhaul the Tiffany Network — decided that the show was “too expensive.”

The program, which is broadcast out of New York, has seen its ratings slip 10% in total viewers to 1.9 million and 20% in the 25 to 54-year-old demo to 346,000 for the season.

Sources said CBS is also canceling “CBS Mornings Plus,” a show co-hosted by Adriana Diaz and Tony Dokoupil, who has been tipped as a leading candidate to host “CBS Evening News.” According to one source, Friday will be the last broadcast of the show.

The show, which aired in certain markets and streamed from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on weekdays, was the brainchild of CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon, who exited earlier this year.

CBS is also nixing “CBS Evening News Plus” — a streaming offshoot of “CBS Evening News,” whose co-anchor John Dickerson recently announced he is leaving the network at the end of the year. It is widely expected that his co-host Maurice DuBois will also exit.

CBS News is also closing its bureau in Johannesburg, South Africa. Senior foreign correspondent Deborah Patta, who was based in the office, has been let go, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The network also ousted Joelle Martinez, its Los Angeles bureau chief, and it gutted its Race and Culture unit, letting go of about eight or nine staffers.

All in all, CBS News endured less than 100 cuts on Wednesday, with more expected at a later date.

The changes came as CBS-parent Paramount Skydance was laying off roughly 1,000 people on Wednesday, the first phase of sweeping layoffs that will ultimately eliminate about 2,000 positions as CEO David Ellison pushes to trim $2 billion in costs.

CBS News staffers have been bracing for major changes under newly-minted editor in chief Bari Weiss, who sold her centrist news site “The Free Press” to Paramount Skydance for $150 million.

She and Cibrowski have been looking at ways to reshape the network by cutting expensive correspondents and shows in order to refresh the network and bring in new talent.

As recently reported by The Post, that includes revamping storied news magazine “60 Minutes” and beefing up the investigative reporting at CBS News.

Weiss, a 41-year-old newshound, was tapped this month to restore “balance” to the Tiffany Network’s news unit, according to Ellison — and insiders say she believes “60 Minutes” has drifted too far to the left, as reported by The Post.