Fox News’ Gutfeld! is continuing to churn out new episodes while its left-wing late-night competitors suffer during a writer’s strike that has left their shows interrupted.
Gutfeld!, hosted by Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, will be the only network-based late-night show to stay on the air, because its writers are not members of the Writer’s Guild of America, and are not participating in Hollywood’s first labor stoppage in 15 years, according to a report by TheWrap.
While Gutfeld! continues on as if nothing has happened, shows hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers are all going dark, as their writers are members of the guild, the report added.
Meanwhile, ABC’s The View has decided to try its luck moving forward without writers, with show host Whoopi Goldberg apologizing in advance during Tuesday’s episode, explaining that the banter during their roundtable talk would likely be less polished now that their writers are on strike.
Gutfeld! typically out-paces its broadcast late-night competitors in total viewers, TheWrap noted. The show averaged 1.8 million total viewers in the month of April — far better than Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.
And on three occasions, Gutfeld! has outperformed Late Night With Stephen Colbert in total viewers, making it the “most-watched” show in late night, depending on the month.
This is good for Fox News, given that the network recently lost one of its more popular hosts, Tucker Carlson, whose highly rated show occurred every weekday at 8:00 p.m. — a time slot that is now hemorrhaging viewers in his absence.
Last week, Fox News suddenly announced it was parting ways with Carlson, who hosted Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Meanwhile, late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon gloated over Tucker Carlson’s surprise departure from Fox News — fulfilling their corporate duty to mock one of their employers’ biggest competitors — with Kimmel proclaiming, “Goodbye Mother-Tucker!”
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