‘Gutfeld!’ Turns Two on Fox News
Host vowed to shake up ‘bland’ late-night. Has he succeeded?
Gutfeld! hits its two-year anniversary April 5 on Fox News Channel. Greg Gutfeld hosted Saturday primetime show The Greg Gutfeld Show before the nightly show launched. It airs on the 11 p.m. ET slot.
Back in February 2021, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said, “With one of the most loyal and engaged audiences in cable news, we’re thrilled to bring the show to weekday primetime and further solidify Greg’s place among late night television stars.”
Since its launch, Gutfeld! has averaged 1.9 million viewers, and 332,000 in the 25-54 demo. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS is first in total viewers, at 2.1 million, and second in the demo, at 396,000, just behind The Tonight Show at 397,000. (The NBC program has tallied 1.4 million total viewers.) Jimmy Kimmel Live!, for its part, averaged 1.5 million and 355,000 in the demo.
Gutfeld joined Fox News in 2007 after a career in men’s magazines. He is a co-host on The Five. Speaking with B+C before his 11 p.m. show launched, Gutfeld called late night “bland as string cheese and not nearly as appetizing.”
He said all the late-night players look the same. “They’ve kind of left open a path for me, where I can go off on different targets and do different stories they might not cover,” Gutfeld said. “We are news based. I really don’t want to get lost in a Q&A with an actress talking about her latest project--that’s not gonna happen.”
Published reports, including one on Semafor, say CNN is considering comedians to host a primetime show, including Jon Stewart and Bill Maher.
Gutfeld has a book coming out in July called The King of Late Night, a collection of essays on his efforts to reshape after-hours TV. “Greg reveals never-before-told stories of his upbringing and early career,” the publicity materials say, “what it’s like going head-to-head with the liberal media, and what it took to flip the script on the comedy landscape.”
Broadcasting & Cable Newsletter
The smarter way to stay on top of broadcasting and cable industry. Sign up below
Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.