How Greg Gutfeld Turned Fox News Channel Into A Late-Night Ratings Juggernaut (2024)

Monday, May 2, marked an era-defining milestone for CNN, as new boss Chris Licht formally took the reins at the news network and now attempts a reboot after months of scandal and chaos. With the imprimatur of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Licht is expected to usher in changes that include, among other things, tilting the editorial pendulum at CNN away from opinion-heavy resistance programming. He won’t be able to change everything, though.

Like the way CNN is all but guaranteed to remain a favorite punching bag for Fox News Channel’s late-night host Greg Gutfeld, whose 11 pm show “Gutfeld!” has been a ratings powerhouse since its launch a little over a year ago now. Monday, by the way, was an important day for Gutfeld as well, marking the debut of a newer, expanded studio for his show — the second-most-watched late-night program in all of broadcast and cable.

Gutfeld, who also pulls double-duty as a panelist on Fox’s “The Five,” is as aware as anyone that Licht began his reign on Monday. Because there are times when the Fox News veteran has posted such strong ratings over the past year that his still young late-night show has actually drawn more eyeballs than CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Which is where Licht worked as showrunner, before decamping to CNN.

During a broadcast of “The Five” last week, following CNN’s announcement that its new corporate parent is pulling the plug on the CNN+ streaming service, Gutfeld could barely contain his glee, lobbing one broadside after another at the network. And at Chris Wallace in particular, the erstwhile Fox News host who left his anchor’s chair at Fox for a job with the network’s chief cable news enemy.

“The Democratic bench is thinner than Chris Wallace’s demo reel from CNN+,” Gutfeld quipped at one point during that broadcast, in typical Gutfeldian fashion. Edgy and irreverent, with snark that often coincides with a favorite theme on the right: That the media are a bunch of joyless scolds.

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Late-night winner

In fact, you could argue that at least some of Gutfeld’s success (an average of almost 2 million viewers in April alone, topping Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon) is best understood within the context of missteps and ratings decline at CNN. To say nothing of the ideological like-mindedness across most of the late-night landscape.

To the extent that CNN’s most high-profile anchors like Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper have a base of loyal viewers, for example, you’d assume it’s because their viewership appreciate the kind of journalism delivered by hosts like those. Even so, one of the oddities about CNN+ was the fact that it sought money from subscribers in exchange for giving them something entirely different from those hosts — a parenting show from Cooper, and a book club from Tapper.

At Fox, meanwhile, the top brass saw an opportunity inherent in “The Five” (the most-watched show on cable news) and decided to turn two of its panelists into force multipliers for the network. Giving viewers even more of what they already liked from “The Five’s” Jesse Watters (who now hosts his own 7 pm ET primetime show on Fox) and Gutfeld — who insisted to me that his late-night Fox show gets better ratings than established rivals including Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” because audiences are tired of being lectured.

“People don’t go to entertainment for homework,” Gutfeld told me. “You don’t pay for homework. And it feels like there’s been this modern kind of woke culture where everything is being informed with a lesson you have to learn — it’s like, I don’t need to be lectured. I didn’t come here to be told how this is oppression and I have to, like, learn about these things. I came to be entertained.”

“Gutfeld!” marked its one-year anniversary earlier this month, on April 5. That same week, the show had its most-watched week to-date, with almost 2.2 million viewers — outpacing even Colbert’s show on two days out of that 7-day period.

“If you’ve been watching my stuff,” Gutfeld continued to me, in a recent phone interview following his show’s 1-year mark, “I spend a lot of time talking about media. Because I know the internal flaws of it.

“I know what’s wrong with things. Because I was in there and knew who I was working with. I know the assumptions that reporters and editors have, and how they try to please their peers.”

“We’re on your side”

That’s a reference to Gutfeld’s past life as a writer and editor at magazines like “Men’s Health” before moving into broadcast at Fox.

“The Gutfeld show became successful, because it came at exactly the right time.” he said. “People have had it with being told that every institution in your life is somehow oppressor vs. oppressed.

“The thing we did was we said we’re no different than you are. We’re looking at this stuff with a jaundiced eye. We get it. We’re on your side. So, I think it’s a combination of we’re entertainment, and we’re not homework.”

In addition to a new studio for his show, “Gutfeld!” on Monday also welcomed back a live in-studio audience. And shortly before delivering the night’s monologue, built around an uprising over Apple’s AAPL return-to-office push, Gutfeld used the first few seconds of his show to kill two birds with one stone:

He joked about the new studio and his audience’s return, while also taking another jab at CNN’s Wallace.

“We’re in a brand new studio — although I did find one of Chris Wallace’s old toupees in my dressing room,” Gutfeld deadpanned.

The monologue about the iPhone maker that he then launched into, meanwhile, is a neat encapsulation of why, over the course of his show’s first year, he’s drawn ratings that outpace CNN and MSNBC together in the same time slot. Gutfeld’s rant, specifically, was inspired by the dissemination of an open letter from Apple workers claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook’s mandate of a hybrid return-to-office policy is effectively racist — that the push will make Apple “younger, whiter and male-dominated.”

Gutfeld: “We’re the people having fun”

It’s the kind of story tailor-made to be put through the “Gutfeld!” wringer.

“I’m not a cut-and-dried conservative,” Gutfeld told me. “I’m not a cut-and-dried Republican — I’m not even a cut-and-dried libertarian. I don’t even know what I am.

“My show is deliberately surreal and absurd, because I’m absurd. I call it the Dean Wormer effect. Dean Wormer was the bad guy in “Animal House” and was always kind of the hood ornament of what a Republican was, and everybody else has fun, right? … My goal was always to flip that. So that we’re the people having fun, and the left, Democrats, are the scolds. You see that now, with even Bill Maher saying, my god, my side is humorless and the other side is having fun.”

How Greg Gutfeld Turned Fox News Channel Into A Late-Night Ratings Juggernaut (2024)

FAQs

Who is the current king of Late Night TV? ›

Greg Gutfeld - King Of Late Night.

Who is number one in late-night? ›

Live+7 ratings (Viewers 2+)
NetworkShow Name / (# of Original Telecasts)Total Viewers
ABCJimmy Kimmel Live! (38)1,720,000
CBSThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert (38)2,586,000
NBCThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (54)1,431,000
12:37 AM
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Apr 15, 2024

Are Greg Gutfeld and Tyrus friends? ›

A year later, Tyrus called out Greg Gutfeld on Twitter. Thus began a friendship and the rest is history. He's been appearing on Gutfeld's programs ever since as well as contributing to various other Fox News Channel hit programs, including Outnumbered, Fox & Friends, The Five and America's Newsroom.

How many viewers does Fox News have per night? ›

In primetime, Fox News averaged 2 million viewers, up 41% from the same month a year earlier. MSNBC averaged 1.16 million, about the same as last year, and CNN averaged 518,000, up 5%.

Who is the most popular late-night host? ›

1 Stephen Colbert, 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'

The leader of the pack in ratings, Colbert was already a late-night powerhouse from his The Daily Show days and his decade-long run on the Emmy-winning The Colbert Report.

How much does Tyrus make a year? ›

His annual salary as a political commentator at Fox News can be listed as $45,696. This is in the same range as a political commentator earns at Fox News. Tyrus' salary at Fox News aside, how wealthy is the commentator? As of 2023, he has a net worth of $2 million, accrued from wrestling, acting, and TV.

Who actually watches late-night shows? ›

Late-night shows predominantly cater to night owls, people suffering from insomnia, shift workers with irregular schedule assignments, younger male audiences and college students, along with spillover audiences through viewers of entertainment and news programs aired earlier in the evening.

What is the most watched talk show in the US? ›

'The View' Tops Daytime Talk Show Ratings for 2021-2022 Season (Exclusive) - IMDb. For the second year in a row, “The View” is the most-watched daytime talk show across both network and syndication, Variety has learned. The ABC series ranked No. 1 in both households and total viewers for the 2021-2022 television season ...

What is Jimmy Fallon's salary a year? ›

How much does Jimmy Fallon make per show? Assuming there are 193 episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon per season like there were in 2022, at a salary of $16 million per year, Fallon makes about $82,901.55 per show.

How big is Tyrus from the Greg Gutfeld show? ›

Tyrus (wrestler)
Tyrus
Billed height6 ft 7 in (201 cm)
Billed weight375 lb (170 kg)
Billed fromThe Concrete Jungle Pasadena, California Planet Funk
Trained byDeep South Wrestling Florida Championship Wrestling
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Why did Tyrus retire? ›

A new champion was crowned in EC3 and the stipulation was that if Tyrus lost, he would retire from in-ring competition.

Who has more viewers, CNN or Fox? ›

In total day, FNC delivered 1.3 million viewers and 147,000 in 25-54 demo, beating CNN by 176% and MSNBC by 58% with total viewers. During primetime (7-11 PM/ET), FNC averaged 2 million viewers and 190,000 in 25-54 demo, garnering a 267% advantage over CNN and 77% advantage over MSNBC with total viewers.

Which evening news has the highest ratings? ›

'World News Tonight' Is Ranking #1 in Total Viewers for the 7th Consecutive Season and in Both Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 for the 4th Season in a Row.

Who is the number one news anchor? ›

America's Most Trusted News Anchors Are … Anderson Cooper humbles Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow, while Lester Holt is the standout in a new THR/Morning Consult poll.

Who did Jimmy Fallon replace on late-night? ›

The program's ratings soon rebounded, but in 2013 Leno announced that he would be stepping down as host the following year. In February 2014 Jimmy Fallon, who had replaced O'Brien at Late Night, began hosting The Tonight Show, which moved back to New York City.

Who is the new guy on the Late Late Show? ›

Patrick Kielty is the next host of the Late Late Show. Kielty grew up in Down during the Troubles. His father, Jack Kielty, who was a building contractor, was shot dead by a loyalist parliamentary group in 1988 when he was 44 and Kielty was just 16.

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