Fox News host Greg Gutfeld mocked CNN for its search for a comedy host – saying the network was already a joke.
Gutfeld claimed the “runaway success” of his own late-night Fox show forced CNN to seek “a hit comedy show of its own.”
Bosses at the famous progressive news network have reportedly peddled the likes of Bill Maher, Trevor Noah and Jon Stewart to offer a satirical take on the news – and with rival Fox’s Gutfeld! to compete.
The Fox show drew an average rating of 2.15 million viewers last year — outperforming vehement progressives like James Corden and Stephen Colbert, who have seen ratings plummet in recent years.
Gutfeld joked that CNN didn’t need a reorganization since it had already brought the “golden age of comedy” to cable news.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld last night mocked CNN for his search for a comedy host – he said the network was already a joke
Bosses at CNN have reportedly floated names like Bill Maher and Trevor Noah
“But isn’t that really the point? CNN was already funny and they went ahead and ruined it,” he said. “I’m talking, of course, about the golden age of comedy. Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, and Brian Stelter. Or as they are known in the industry, the Three Stooges. Those were the days, weren’t they?’
He also argued that the network’s efforts were doomed to fail because good comedy relies on “truth, not ideology.”
Quoting the late comedian Norm MacDonald, who was fired from NBC after jokes about OJ Simpson, Gutfeld suggested that CNN would impose strict rules on comedians that would prevent them from being funny.
After Simpson’s acquittal in 1995, MacDonald said, “Well, it’s official, it’s finally official. Murder is legal in the state of California.”
Gutfeld said, “The audience roared because they knew it was true, but they also laughed because Norm said something that you felt shouldn’t have been said.
“There were rumors that some executives at NBC didn’t want him making OJ jokes. He was willing to break the rules to tell the truth. How can a network do that while calling pregnant moms? To be successful in comedy, you have to rely on truth, not ideology.”
CNN’s rumored nightly foray is the latest in a series of sweeping changes at the network under new boss Chris Licht.
According to people familiar with the matter, the unnamed prankster would be tasked with filling the 9 p.m. sacred time slot previously held by Cuomo.
CNN executives, led by Licht, have largely failed to fill the space left by Cuomo, who lost the gig more than a year ago after trying to help his brother Andrew Cuomo in fighting a sexual abuse scandal to help harassment.
Viewership figures for the week of September 19-25 show liberal late-night shows in favor of new top dog Gutfeld! play second fiddle, which aired weekdays at 11pm last April. Many attribute the drop to recent political tirades displayed by the hosts during the show
CNN is reportedly considering hiring a comedian to host one of its trying prime times — the latest in a series of sweeping changes to the network under CEO Chris Licht (pictured).
Meanwhile, primetime presenter Lemon – who has been openly hostile to Donald Trump throughout his campaign and presidency – has been moved to the morning crew.
Licht’s new era has seen several popular and notoriously progressive presenters, including John Harwood and Brian Stelter, being phased out along with their shows.
Licht hinted at a desire to sign comedian Stewart in an interview with The New York Times last year.
The 60-year-old satirist, who is currently signed to Apple, seems like an unlikely option – although the excellent ratings he’s brought to The Daily Show for 16 years are likely to have sparked the late-night pundit’s interest – particularly compared to the ratings of his successor Trevor Noah and other more polarizing talkers like Colbert and former Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee.
Speaking to The Times, Licht – who laid off hundreds of staff including political reporter Chris Cillizza last month – said he would like to hire the former late-night presenter if possible.
Another, more promising prospect is Maher, a more outspoken progressive who, despite his politics, manages to appeal to a broader demographic than his more divisive peers.
Maher, 66, currently hosts his long-running eponymous program on HBO, which, like CNN, is now managed by parent company Warner Bros.
Puck reported that CNN executives are already in talks to air some of Maher’s weekly additional HBO segments on some of the network’s various media outlets.
CNN’s new boss has worked to tone down the often opinionated and emotional reporting from anchors like Lemon, who have also been relieved of hosting duties for the network’s underperforming primetime slot
Already familiar with using satire to improve viewership, Licht was tasked with the grand task of increasing the network’s declining viewership last February.
However, late night ratings dips are common – and many have attributed this to liberal talking points shown by hosts during the programme.
Perpetrators include Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and James Corden – all vehement progressives who have seen ratings plummet in recent years, almost all of whom have at some point been accused of being vehicles for the liberal mainstream media.
The rapidly changing late-night landscape has also highlighted the success that more conservative speakers – like Greg Gutfeld – are currently enjoying.
The Fox show attracted an average ratings of 2.15 million viewers last year – far more than Liberal rivals Fallon, Corden, Colbert and Noah have achieved in recent months.
The show, which ran nightly in April 2021, is often reviled by the left and adored by the right – but with liberals feeling turned off by politically driven diatribes from their favorite TV speakers, shows like Gutfeld! have carved themselves a place at the head of the pack in the battle for nighttime dominance.
Back in July, showrunners pulled “Full Frontal” by notorious neoliberal comedian Samantha Bee to TBS after Bee, a former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, struggled to garner even 300,000 viewers for her show.
Then in September, Stewart’s replacement, bright comedian Trevor Noah, was also kicked out of the program after seven years due to declining ratings.
Since taking Stewart’s place on the once-popular show, viewership has dropped dramatically – some say the South African comic’s fierce soapbox rants sparked the slump.
When Noah, 38, took over the show in 2015, the ratings were around 900,000 – but in recent months the numbers have fallen below 400,000.
For reference, Stewart’s tenure typically saw viewership around 1.5 million per episode — rising to 2.5 million at times.
Meanwhile, it’s hard to find a monologue about Colbert, Kimmel, or Seth Meyers without talking about Trump, who has been out of office for nearly two years.
CNN is hoping to get away from the drama following the downfall of host Chris Cuomo and network boss Jeff Zucker (together above in 2014).
Still, the famously liberal Meyers, who took on the Late Night mantle made famous by David Letterman and later downsized by Fallon in 2017, hasn’t hit the viewership mark in recent years.
In 1984, Letterman averaged 2.5 million viewers. Today, Meyers struggles to even reach the 800,000 viewer mark.
The situation at NBC is reportedly so dire that rumors are swirling that Meyers’ show could be relegated to either the network’s struggling streaming service, Peacock, or to notoriously left-wing network arm MSNBC.
Corden, meanwhile, has also faced his own controversy and even worse ratings, also failing to hit 800k as he faces backlash from fellow comedians like Ricky Gervais for stealing their material.
Across the rest of the late-night sphere, the ratings phenomenon is quite similar, with only Colbert, Kimmel and Fallon surpassing the million mark in second, third and fourth place behind Gutfeld.
All are well below Gutfeld’s impressive ratings! with 2.5 million hits in October, according to the latest Nielsen study.
Average ratings for the above shows have all fallen well below ratings achieved in recent years, and have been hosted by increasingly outspoken – and left-leaning – hosts for the past few years.