News/Commentary

‘Gutfeld!’ ratings soar, CNN employees ‘freaking out’ as network continues to tank

July 7, 2022 | | Print Article

Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld is on the rise and all of CNN is reportedly on the decline.

According to Mediaite, Gutfeld’s meteoric rise to success now has him regularly beating NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“Last week Fox News’s late-night show ‘Gutfeld!’ averaged 2.12 million total viewers and some 348,000 viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic – his second-best week of the year. … Fallon last week averaged 1.23 million total viewers, while Kimmel averaged 1.204 million,” Mediaite reported Wednesday.

Meanwhile, as Gutfeld has been on the rise, CNN has been in the gutter — so much so that it’s usually confident employees are now reportedly “freaking out” privately.

Part of the problem, they claim, is that the network has new bosses, and the new bosses want to transform CNN from a far-left network into a moderate one.

“Journalism first. America needs a news network where everybody can come and be heard; Republicans, Democrats. I think you’re seeing more of that at CNN. We’re not going to look at the ratings and, in the long run, it’s going to be worth more,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Zaslav reportedly said during an event this week in Idaho.

To accomplish this mission, he hired Christ Licht to serve as the head of CNN. However, Licht’s hiring and the subsequent change in standards at CNN has engendered an intense drop in ratings — one which employees blame on the network trying to moderate itself.

“The problem is we are not a neutral country. The ratings are getting worse because they are taking out all the bells and whistles. CNN’s ratings are as bad as local news ratings,” a source within CNN told the New York Post.

“New management is not freaking out but everyone else at CNN is. They want to fix the shows first, but they don’t realize the shows and ratings are connected,” the source added.

CNN’s ratings are in freefall, and it’s no surprise, some critics say.

“After half a year of weak ratings, CNN turned in one of its worst months yet. According to TV ratings agency Nielsen, CNN’s weekend ratings for the month were the lowest of the year in both the all-important 25- to 54-year-old demographic and total viewers,” according to the Post.

“It also coincided with a historic low for the network on Saturday, June 18 — which saw the network dip to 57,000 total demo viewers. That Saturday was also the worst-rated since 1993, which pre-dated CNN’s top competitors Fox News and MSNBC.”

The issue is that CNN has built itself up as a virulently left-wing, anti-Trump network, and so now that it’s pivoting toward real news, it’s predictably hemorrhaging viewers as the partisans flee, presumably to MSNBC.

Adding to the problem is the fact that attracting new viewers — particularly moderate viewers — requires rebuilding their trust. That’s no easy task. In fact, some say it’s already too late for the network to recover:

Fox News, on the other hand, has always pursued a more “fair and balanced” style, ergo why so many leftists like Juan Williams and Jessica Tarlov frequently make appearances on its shows. And, ultimately, this strategy has paid off bigly.

“New month, similar trend: Fox News Channel had the most-watched shows on cable news, not only in average total audience but also among the key A25-54 demographic,” Adweek reported late last month.

Fox News held nine out of the top 10 spots, with “Gutfeld!” in particular coming in at 8th place right underneath MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Word to the wise: Fox News didn’t get to the top by spewing partisan drivel. Zaslav and Licht appear to understand this. But whether or not they can truly fix the ailing network remains to be seen.

Vivek Saxena
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