OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News revealed its brand new prime-time lineup last week and now another change has been announced.
Fox News veteran Trace Gallagher’s “Fox News @ Night” will now take over the 11 p.m. ET time slot starting on July 17. Gallagher, who has been with Fox since 1996, will be taking over Greg Gutfeld’s old time slot since he has been moved to primetime.
“It’s live, it’s live, it’s live,” Gallagher said. “Everything going on is live. So, that’s a big thing for our push to 11 p.m.… it’s 8 p.m. in California. People are still outside having dinner. It’s current. It’s now, we are still covering the news. The news day is still in progress.”
“11 p.m. traditionally across the country, regardless of where you are, 11:00 has been the news hour. That’s America’s news hour, right? Everybody knows the 11 o’clock news, you know, for local news,” Gallagher continued. “For us to be on at 8 p.m. in the West and 9 p.m. in Denver at 10 p.m. in Chicago and 11 p.m. in New York, it gives us a chance to capture audiences across the country and to become America’s late news for the entire country. That’s our goal.”
“And if there’s not stuff happening right now, the show will look forward and tell you what you can expect when you wake up tomorrow morning. So, we’re always covering what happened a couple of hours ago, what’s happening right now, and what you can look forward to when you wake up tomorrow morning,” he said. “That’s kind of the goal of our show.”
In a press release, the network revealed that Jesse Watters will take the 8 p.m. slot, directly replacing Carlson. Laura Ingraham will move from 10 p.m. to 7 p.m., Sean Hannity will stay at 9 p.m. and Greg Gutfeld will move to 10 p.m. Longtime news anchor Trace Gallagher will move up to 11 p.m.
“A rotating cast of hosts stepped in to replace Carlson after he was abruptly fired from Fox News one week after it reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the airing of 2020 election lies. The ratings dipped significantly from the Carlson era, who in his seven years helming Tucker Carlson Tonight emerged as a controversial but popular host at the network,” Mediaite reported.
“Watters joined Fox News two decades ago, working his way up from production assistant to on-air commentator on Bill O’Reilly’s hit prime-time show. In recent years, he has become one of the most-watched personalities on the network, as co-host of the top-rated show The Five and solo host of his own program Watters’ World, which debuted in the 7 p.m. slot in 2022,” the outlet added. “Perhaps the biggest shake-up is moving the top-rated late-night show Gutfeld! from 11 PM to an hour earlier.”
Since being taken off the air, Carlson has begun posting short monologues to Twitter, which Fox says is a violation of his contract.
The network has sent him a cease-and-desist letter, though so far, he has refused to do so, arguing that Fox violates their contract with him.
