OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
One of the most popular hosts on cable television, Fox News’ Jesse Watters, just got some more good news this week as new ratings for his “Primetime” show were announced. According to the latest figures, Watters has made history for hosting the most popular program in his timeslot in the history of the cable news industry.
“Jesse Watters Primetime,” which airs in the 7 p.m. EDT slot Monday through Friday, became the most-watched and highest-rated program in cable news history in 2022, according to a press release from the network.
FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said: “From America’s choice on election night to the home of late night’s smash hit show, 2022 was a testament to our unmatched skill in delivering the most innovative news and opinion programming to our audience which continues to rank as the most politically diverse in cable news. I am beyond proud of our entire team’s incredible achievements this year.”
The release noted further:
During 2022, FNC scored the top 13 out of 15 programs in cable news with total viewers, including The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, Special Report with Bret Baier, The Ingraham Angle, Gutfeld!, Outnumbered, America’s Newsroom, The Faulkner Focus, Your World with Neil Cavuto, America Reports and The Story. FNC also had the top 15 rated shows in A25-54 and the 13 highest-rated shows with the 18-49 demo.
FNC’s The Five continued to smash records this year. For the first time in television history, a non-primetime cable program closed out the year as cable’s most-watched in total viewers. Airing at 5 PM/ET, FNC’s late afternoon program crushed all daytime and primetime programming on CNN and MSNBC, garnering cable news’ largest audience in 2022 with 3,432,000 viewers and 465,000 in A25-54. Tucker Carlson Tonight was cable news’ highest-rated program in the A25-54 demo, averaging 523,000 viewers in A25-54 and 3,322,000 total viewers at 8 PM/ET.
One of the year’s biggest surprises for the network was the resounding success of Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show, which has, at times, performed better than long-established late-night shows on the broadcast networks.
As noted by Forbes, Gutfeld’s weekend late-night show has been delivering massive viewership.
Like the way CNN is all but guaranteed to remain a favorite punching bag for Fox News Channel’s late-night host Greg Gutfeld, whose 11 pm show “Gutfeld!” has been a ratings powerhouse since its launch a little over a year ago now. Monday, by the way, was an important day for Gutfeld as well, marking the debut of a newer, expanded studio for his show — the second-most-watched late-night program in all of broadcast and cable.
In fact, you could argue that at least some of Gutfeld’s success (an average of almost 2 million viewers in April alone, topping Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon) is best understood within the context of missteps and ratings decline at CNN. To say nothing of the ideological like-mindedness across most of the late-night landscape.
“People don’t go to entertainment for homework,” Gutfeld told Forbes. “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.”
