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Greg Gutfeld’s Late-Night Show Sees Second-Largest Viewership

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Fox News host Greg Gutfeld’s late-night program continues to gain audiences as more Americans appear to be flocking there instead of the usual left-wing fare offered on the broadcast networks.

In fact, the show drew its second-largest viewership since its launch earlier this week, Forbes reported.

According to the report, “Gutfeld!” drew 2.5 million viewers, “a staggering audience for a late-night show on cable, and the second biggest night in the history of Greg Gutfeld’s politics-and-comedy program.”

He also beat out all of the other lefty late-night shows:

With 2.494 million total viewers and 396,000 viewers in the key demographic group of adults 25-54, Gutfeld! beat not just everything else on cable, but the high-profile broadcast networks’ late night shows as well. CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was a close second with 2.1 million viewers and 375,000 viewers in the key demo, followed by NBC’s The Tonight Show (1.289 million viewers and 318,000 in the demo), and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live (1.285 million total viewers and 287,000 viewers in the key demo).

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Gutfeld! dominated other late-night cable news programs even more, with the closest — “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” on MSNBC, delivering just 953,000 viewers and a paltry 94,000 in the key demographic. “CNN Tonight” came in a dismal 412,000 viewers overall but a smidge better in the key demo with 101,000, Forbes noted. Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” once dominant in its timeslot, brought in just 443,000 viewers total with 182,000 in the demo.

“Part of the reason for that is the audience has really connected with some of the new guests we’ve introduced them to, but also they’ve gotten to see some FNC stars let their hair down for an hour,” executive producer Tom O’Connor told Forbes in September in response to why he thought the show had become a late-night smash.

Gutfeld also took a shot at explaining his show’s success to Forbes in May.

“People don’t go to entertainment for homework,” Gutfeld told the outlet. “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.”

“If you’ve been watching my stuff, I spend a lot of time talking about media. Because I know the internal flaws of it. 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.”

“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.”

In August, his late-night show became the first on cable to win the ratings wars for an entire month, Mediaite reported, beating all network programs on ABC, NBC, and CBS.

“Roughly 18 months into its run in the 11 p.m. ET hour on Fox News, the Greg Gutfeld-helmed talk show topped every program among its broadcast competition,” the outlet reported.

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This has also been a huge year for most other Fox News hosts, especially Tucker Carlson.

Television viewership data released by Nielsen/MRI Fusion reveals that Carlson’s show is the number one most-watched show among Democrats in the key demographic of 25-54 year-olds.

And host Sean Hannity also recently became the longest-running prime-time cable news host.

Hannity, who has been with Fox News since its launch in 1996, smashed another record after becoming a host for nearly 25 years and six months.

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