Is Greg Gutfeld the new king of Fox News?

As the former editor of Things The magazine that used to host the 3 a.m. talk show this morning is ready to take the lead at Fox News? If recent viewership numbers are any indication, that could be the case.

Greg Gutfeld, 57, describes himself as a ‘liberal’ known for his right-wing humor and increasingly hostile politics, which currently hosts two of the most watched shows on cable news.

In the process, Gutfeld played a key role in bringing Sean Hannity – who was once synonymous with Fox News – down to number three on the network. And he seems to be on track to overtake Tucker Carlson as Fox News’ ratings king, even though both of his shows fall outside of the week’s most-watched primetime primetime slot.

Among the recent ranking wins of Five and the high viewership of Gutfeld’s late-night talk show of the same name, Red eyes The host is a Fox News juggler.

Since last summer, Five— The late-afternoon talk show that Gutfeld has co-hosted since its debut in 2011 — has surpassed 9 p.m. of the same name by Hannity to become the second most-watched show of all TV news cable. At the same time, the program ended in Tucker Carlson Tonight’s high heels, which at one point surpassed the primetime star in October as the most watched show on cable. (In fact, for both December and the last quarter of the year, Five actually ranked first in terms of total viewership, topping Carlson with a slim 6,000 viewers in the final quarter of 2021.)

During the tumultuous tenure of former President Donald Trump, best friend and shadow chief of staff Hannity has risen to the top of the cable news feed. This isn’t just because of the Fox star’s gay fetish for Trump, however, or his willingness to talk about GOP views: In April 2017, Fox fired the reigning king of cable news. , Bill O’Reilly, hereafter a series of sexual harassment settlements. Hannity slides in easily his old rival placed at the top of the Fox News food chain.

For the next few years, Hannity was the most watched show on all cable news. But that started to change in 2020 when Carlson, who replaced O’Reilly on Fox’s 8 p.m. position, finally sneaked into Hannity and got past him and broke the record for average viewership in a fiscal quarter.

Although Hannity ended the year as the most-watched show, barely overtaking Carlson, the writing was on the wall. Heading into the 2020 election, Carlson – who has always been far less Trump-focused than Hannity and MAGA loyalists – set multiple cable news records, at a time attracted 5.36 million eye-catching average viewers for a month, leading the network for the highest number of prime hours ever.

While that seismicity raged atop Fox News, Gutfeld quietly amassed influence and a viewership considered one of the network’s superiors.

Over the past few years, he has transitioned from careless satire to belligerence, spending most of Trump’s time actively promote and roots for the president at that time while Indulge in the praises of a TV-addicted president.

But like Carlson, Gutfeld’s MAGA adjoining location never became his overarching identity. In a post-Trump world in which Fox News has pivoted to culture-war grievances, the lure of right-wing outrage, and relentless anti-Bideism, Gutfeld’s widely anti-liberal ideology certainly helped raise his profile. Meanwhile, Hannity, whose wagon is so closely tied to all that Trump’s fandom has struggled to identify.

Come the 2020 election, the Gutfeld-led daytime talk show Five rose to third place in Fox News viewership, replacing Laura Ingraham, another Fox host whose identity seems to be tied to Trump. During the first half of 2021, Hannity was able to prevent Gutfeld & Co. 2nd place — but just barely.

As 2021 drags on, shares of Gutfeld only continue to rise at Fox.

He was given his own nightly 11 p.m. broadcast award as part of Fox’s efforts to remove more “straight news” broadcasts for programming comments. Released in April, “comedy” hour, titled Gutfeld!, Replaced Fox News @ Night—was pushed to midnight–and became an instant hit, easily accumulating the most viewers for the cable slot and eventually surpassing most late-night talk shows of broadcast networks.

The late-night show consistently ranks in the top 10 of all cable news programs, averaging nearly 2 million viewers in November, and although comedians and evaluate initial revolves around the show’s efforts to right-wing humor, Gutfeld bask in the praises of anti-awake host Bill Maher.

Gutfeld also cemented his status as the dominant presence on the Five. His influence online and on the conference program was evident not only on camera but also behind the scenes as he reported to have played a part in getting fellow freelancer Juan Williams to kick off the show. (Fox News denied this.) Later that year, Gutfeld seem to drive most of generated titles before 5pm gabfest.

And so, by August 2021, Five surpassed Hannity in total viewership. The following month, the ratings gap between the two grew even larger. Since then, the late afternoon talk show has repeatedly hit Hannity with not looking back. (Hannity still ends 2021 in second place in the primary 25-54 ad demographic.)

But Gutfeld’s ascent doesn’t seem to stop there.

After holding second place, Five came knocking on Tucker’s door. In October, the panel show took first place — with just 30,000 viewers. And Hannity is still bogged down in a pretty far third place.

Carlson regained the top spot in November with an average of 3.7 million viewers, but Five followed closely behind with 3.5 million. Once again, Hannity ended up with hundreds of thousands of viewers after the Gutfeld-led show.

After topping only the first week of December, Carlson’s 8 p.m. show took second for the next two weeks to Five, which averaged 3.38 million total viewers for a week, and then follow then up with 3.19 million the following week, just as much as Carlson’s 3.11 million. And when the month ends, Five Almost regained the chart crown, grossing Carlson’s total audience of 3.34 million to 3.22 million.

But while Carlson and Gutfeld now seem to be toying with Fox’s ratings dominance, Hannity is clearly left behind: In the first three weeks of the month, he drew less than half a million viewers. compared to both Carlson and Five.