Is the former editor of Stuff magazine who used to host a 3 a.m. talk show now poised to become a top dog at Fox News? If recent viewership numbers are any indication, that may just be the case.
Greg Gutfeld, the 57-year-old self-described âlibertarianâ known for his right-wing humor and increasingly hostile politics, currently hosts two of the most-watched shows on cable news.
In the process, Gutfeld has played a key role in relegating Sean Hannityâwhose name was once synonymous with Fox Newsâto third-place status at the network. And he is seemingly on the verge of overtaking Tucker Carlson as the king of Fox News ratings, even though both of his programs sit outside of the highly viewed weeknight primetime hours.
Between the recent ratings victories of The Five and the high viewership numbers of Gutfeldâs eponymous late-night talk show, the former Red Eye host is a Fox News juggernaut.
Since this past summer, The Fiveâthe late-afternoon talk show Gutfeld has co-hosted since the programâs debut in 2011âhas overtaken Hannityâs eponymous 9 p.m. as the second-most-watched show in all of cable news. At the same time, the show has nipped at Tucker Carlson Tonightâs heels, at one point surpassing the primetime star in October as cableâs most-viewed program. (In fact, for both the month of December and the final quarter of the year, The Five actually placed first in total viewership, topping Carlson by a slim 6,000 viewers in the final quarter of 2021.)
During former President Donald Trumpâs chaotic tenure, his close personal friend and shadow chief of staff Hannity rose to the top of the cable news heap. This wasnât just because of the Fox starâs sycophantic devotion to Trump or his willingness to parrot GOP talking points, however: In April 2017, Fox fired the reigning king of cable news, Bill OâReilly, following a slew of sexual harassment settlements. Hannity easily slid into his former rivalâs place atop the Fox News food chain.
Over the next few years, Hannity was the most-viewed show in all of cable news. But that started to change in 2020 when Carlson, who replaced OâReilly in Foxâs 8 p.m. slot, finally snuck up on Hannity and overtook him and broke his record for average viewership in a fiscal quarter.
Though Hannity finished the year as the most-watched show, just barely edging out Carlson, the writing was already on the wall. Heading into the 2020 election, Carlsonâwhose program was always far less Trump-centric than Hannityâs and other MAGA loyalistsâset more cable news records, at one point drawing an eye-popping 5.36 million average viewers for a single month, leading the network to its highest primetime numbers ever.
While that seismic shift took place atop Fox News, Gutfeld quietly amassed the clout and viewership to be considered among the upper echelon of the network.
Over the past few years, he has transformed from irreverent satirist to acerbic ideologue, spending much of the Trump years actively boosting and rooting for the then-president while basking in the TV-addicted presidentâs adulation.
But much like Carlson, Gutfeldâs MAGA adjacency never became his overarching identity. In a post-Trump world, in which Fox News has pivoted to culture-war grievances, right-wing outrage bait, and incessant anti-Bidenism, Gutfeldâs broad ideology of being decidedly anti-liberal has undoubtedly helped elevate his profile. Meanwhile, Hannity, whose wagon was firmly hitched to all things Trump fandom, has struggled for an identity.
By the 2020 election, the Gutfeld-led daytime talk show The Five already rose to third place in Fox News viewership, supplanting Laura Ingraham, another Fox host whose identity seems firmly attached to Trumpâs. For the first half of 2021, Hannity was able to hold off Gutfeld & Co. from taking the No. 2 slotâbut only barely.
As 2021 dragged on, Gutfeldâs stock only continued to rise at Fox.
He was awarded his own nightly 11 p.m. broadcast as part of Foxâs effort to ditch more of its âstraight newsâ broadcasts for opinion programming. Debuting in April, the âcomedyâ hour, titled Gutfeld!, replaced Fox News @ Nightâwhich was pushed to midnightâand immediately became a hit, easily accruing the most viewership for its cable timeslot and eventually besting most of the broadcast networksâ late-night talk shows.
The late-night show consistently remained in the top 10 of all cable news programs, pulling in an average of nearly 2 million viewers in November. And despite comedians and reviews initially panning the showâs attempts at right-wing humor, Gutfeld soaked in the praises of fellow anti-âwokeâ panel host Bill Maher.
Gutfeld also cemented his status as the dominant presence on The Five. His clout at the network and within the panel program has been apparent not just on camera, but behind the scenes when he reportedly played a part in getting liberal colleague Juan Williams booted from the show. (Fox News has denied this was the case.) By the end of the year, Gutfeld seemed to drive most of the headlines generated by the 5 p.m. gabfest.
And so, by August 2021, The Five passed Hannity in total viewership. The following month, the ratings gap between the two grew even larger. Since then, the later-afternoon talk show has consistently beaten Hannity and has not looked back. (Hannity did still finish 2021 in second place in the key 25-54 advertising demographic.)
But Gutfeldâs rise doesnât seem to be stopping there.
After being firmly ensconced in second place, The Five has come knocking at Tuckerâs door. For the month of October, the panel show took first placeâby a mere 30,000 viewers. And Hannity remained mired in a fairly distant third place.
Carlson reclaimed his lead in November with 3.7 million average viewers, but The Five followed closely behind with 3.5 million. Once again, Hannity finished several hundred thousand viewers behind the Gutfeld-led program.
After barely finishing on top in the first week of December, Carlsonâs 8 p.m. show placed second the following two weeks to The Five, which averaged 3.38 million total viewers in one week, and then followed that up with 3.19 million the following week, just squeaking by Carlsonâs 3.11 million. And as the month wrapped up, The Five barely reclaimed the ratings crown, pulling in a total audience of 3.34 million to Carlsonâs 3.22 million.
But while Carlson and Gutfeld now seem to be jockeying for Fox ratings dominance, Hannity is clearly left behind: Over the first three weeks of the month, he drew roughly half-a-million fewer viewers than both Carlson and The Five.
