Fox News

Greg Gutfeld isn’t your typical Fox News personality. But he is turning in to something that is more traditional at the Fox Corp.-backed cable outlet. Gutfeld will continue his co-hosting duties at the roundtable show The Five as well as his 10 p.m. program, Gutfeld!, a looser take on the issues of the day that marks a bid by Fox News to woo the younger TV viewers who might watch latenight programs such as The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on CBS or The Daily Show on Comedy Central. The third anniversary of the 10 p.m. program arrives Friday.

Fox News beat the full-court press of TBS and TNT’s coverage of the March Madness college basketball tournament to top cable’s primetime chart for the 10th straight week. Fox News averaged 1.9 million viewers in primetime for the week of March 18-24, topping second place TBS’ 1.7 million viewers and TNT’s 1.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox News.

The affable longtime Fox & Friends host is shaking things up in the morning, sparring with colleagues and challenging GOP orthodoxy, to the dismay of Donald Trump and other Republican leaders.

On the two-year anniversary of the attack in Ukraine that claimed the lives of Fox News photojournalist Pierre Zakrzewski and contractor Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, the network was accused Thursday of being culpable for the fatal incident by engaging in “reckless and negligent conduct” that put the crew in harm’s way. The network was also accused of launching “a campaign of material misrepresentations and omissions to hide its own accountability for the disaster and shift blame” to then-security contractor Shane Thomson, who allegedly warned against the crew entering the dangerous zone near Kyiv where they were killed.

At conservative America’s favorite news source, the Republican nomination process is essentially over and has been for awhile, leaving Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley annoyed at perceived favoritism to Trump. Hardly grateful, the former president regularly tears into Fox for what he sees as disloyalty, even ripping his former White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, now a Fox contributor.

The prospect of the pop megastar endorsing President Biden in the 2024 election has irked conservative stars on the cable network. Pictured: Taylor Swift at the AFC Championship game last Sunday. (Nick Wass/AP)

Fox News’ coverage of the New Hampshire Primary helped the news channel sweep both the cable primetime and total day charts for the last week of January. Fox News averaged 2.1 million viewers for the week of January 22-29, topping MSNBC’s 1.2 million viewers and HGTV’s 891,000 watchers, according to Nielsen numbers provided by Fox News. The news network’s win was aided by its Jan. 23 coverage of the New Hampshire Primary, which averaged 3.3 million viewers from 8 to 11 p.m.

The court’s order advanced claims from both sides. The dispute centers on allegations that Fox, in an attempt to boost ratings, capitalized on the popularity of former President Donald Trump by fabricating a narrative that Smartmatic caused him to unfairly lose the election.

Fox News Digital released a series of ratings data points sourced from Comscore, saying in a statement that, based on the numbers, the group “closed out calendar year 2023 as the top-performing news brand with multiplatform views and minutes.” The company also reported that it saw 9% growth with views and 6% growth with minutes, year over year.

The one-hour program which aired from 9-10 p.m. ET, competing directly with CNN’s Republican presidential debate, drew 553,000 average viewers in the key 25-54 demographic. It outpaced CNN’s debate by 68%.

As Donald Trump’s two main Republican rivals slugged it out Wednesday on an Iowa debate stage, the former president appeared across town on a Fox News Channel town hall in a counterprogramming move where few discouraging words were heard. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

A town hall in Iowa on Wednesday is the network’s first live interview with the former president in nearly two years, the latest twist in a long-running drama.

A second major cable news channel is seeking an exemption from federal video description rules intended to help millions who are either the blind or visual impaired. Fox News — the top-rated cable network overall for the past eight years — is asking for the exemption from the FCC, joining MNBC in asserting that the agency’s rules have traditionally excluded networks that offer little in the way of recorded programming.

Fox News will host a pair of town halls next week with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as they look to challenge former President Trump for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. The town halls, which will both air live and be broadcast from Des Moines, Iowa, will feature Haley on Jan. 8 and DeSantis on Jan. 9.

Fox News will host a town hall with former President Donald Trump on Jan. 10, which happens to be the same evening as CNN’s Republican debate in Iowa. The Fox News event will be co-moderated by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum and will be aired live from Des Moines, Iowa.

The Christmas holiday period began in a not-so-festive mood at Fox News with reports of the deaths of Adam Petlin, the director of Chicago bureau operations, and Matt Napolitano from Fox News Audio. Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott shared the news with staffers via two company-wide memos over the holiday weekend.

Fox News took the crown as the top-rated cable channel in 2023, the eighth consecutive year it has done so. On a 24-hour total day basis, the network pulled in a daily average of more than 1.2 million viewers including 150,000 in the advertiser-coveted 25 to 54 age demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

Fox News Media named Fox Nation chief Jason Klarman its chief digital officer as part of a series of executive moves that reassign some oversight of the Fox Business Network and the Fox Nation streaming service. Lauren Petterson, the Fox Business Network president, was moved to a top Fox Nation while Porter Berry, a longtime producer who has worked closely with Sean Hannity, was elevated to president of Fox News Digital and Editor-In-Chief from an executive vice president role. Jay Wallace, Fox News Media’s president, will take the full reigns of Fox Business as part of the moves.

The network argued that Jason Donner had not shown he faced illegal discrimination. The nation’s capital bans discrimination based on political party membership or endorsement, but Donner hasn’t shown he joined a political party, nor that his bosses knew and fired him for it, Fox lawyers said.

First Amendment advocates are alarmed by the case of Catherine Herridge, who is facing an imminent court deadline and steep fines.

Former Fox News staffer Andrew Delancey is suing the producer, Justin Wells — who was fired last spring along with the host — over the alleged assault and the network over alleged sexual harassment and negligence.

Fox News‘ Ron DeSantis–Gavin Newsom debate drew 5.46 million million viewers — 4.75 million in its live telecast and 706,000 for a rebroadcast — giving a ratings bump to Sean Hannity in the time slot. The Thursday 90-minute debate — billed as a Red State vs. Blue State showdown — easily beat the competition on MSNBC and CNN.

Rupert was deposed this week and his son Lachlan will sit for a grilling as well, as the 2020-related case moves along.

Rupert Murdoch is set to be questioned under oath on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of voting technology company Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. over coverage of debunked vote-rigging claims involving the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a person familiar with the matter said. Murdoch will be deposed in Los Angeles, according to that person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The deposition does not appear on the public docket for the case.

The event moderated by Sean Hannity on Thursday will feature two governors who aren’t rivals for office but have long sparred.