Is there a new favorite at Fox News? Maybe. While Fox News veterans like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are embedded into the very framework of Fox News, it seems the network has a not-so-new face that’s taking America by storm. Greg Gutfeld, who has been at the network for years is finding fame with his late-night show “Gutfeld!” which has rapidly become of the network’s most popular programs.
According to the Samford Advocate:
Underground acclaim as a television comedic host has given way to more traditional right-wing fame as he’s become a superfan of former president Donald Trump, a scorching critic of America’s racial reckoning following high-profile police shootings of Black men, and leaned harder into the Democrat-bashing that characterizes Fox News. After years on “The Five,” an ensemble show he co-hosts, he’s become even a bigger part of the dominant news network’s success as the host of a late-night comedy program that debuted in April – “Gutfeld!” Defying predictions, “Gutfeld!” is regularly generating higher ratings than more established late-night fare, such as “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon,” and has at times even topped “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
His combined viewership on the two programs – “The Five” and “Gutfeld!” – soared to an average of more than 5 million per day in the fourth quarter of 2021. It’s quite a feat for an edgy former men’s magazine editor who finds himself at a network populated by some of the biggest and most enduring figures in the conservative media pantheon.
Other marquee names at the network, such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, may have a larger overall reach because of their presence on additional platforms, such as radio or the network’s streaming service. Still, in a matter of months Gutfeld’s new program has made him significantly more influential – well-positioned to aid the right-wing in amplifying its agenda going into the midterms and the next presidential election. His fidgety, high-energy combination of comic jabs, spliced with just enough analysis to be taken seriously by the faithful, makes him a uniquely potent foe for the left.
Far from mimicking the deadly serious voice of Fox News stalwarts, such as Hannity, Carlson and Laura Ingraham, “Gutfeld!,” which airs weeknights at 11 p.m. on the East Coast, is banging many of the same topics, but with an irreverent tone.
More liberal networks have experienced huge dips in viewership and ratings since Trump left the White House, meanwhile, Fox News is more popular than ever. No wonder radicals expend so much of their time and energy attacking the conservative networks. However, it seems with the rise of “Gutfeld!” and other programs attacking the left that Fox News will keep succeeding.
