Fox News host Greg Gutfeld ruled late-night America last week, as his show topped all corners in the 11 p.m. time slot.
The show “Gutfeld!” had an average total audience of 2.355 million viewers, according to Forbes.
Second place belonged to CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” with 2.143 million viewers, followed by NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” at 1.318 million viewers and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with 1.084 million viewers.
Gutfeld’s show also led in adults 25-54, an important demographic group for advertisers.
Gutfeld had an average of 397,000 viewers in the 25-54 age group, followed by Colbert at 373,000 viewers, Fallon at 372,000 viewers and Kimmel at 264,000.
The week of August 12 was the third week in which Gutfeld has come out on top.
Gutfeld was also far ahead of other cable competitors, including MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle,” which had an average of 1.381 million viewers and CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight,” which had 665,000 viewers.
“I’m interested in pulling people in who want to have a good time and are open to stuff — but a lot of it is just weird stuff from me,” Gutfeld said regarding his success.
Gutfeld said he avoids the lecturing tone of other shows, according to Forbes.
Are too many talk shows nothing but lectures?
Yes: 100% (27 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
“People don’t go to entertainment for homework,” he said. “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.”
“I spend a lot of time talking about media. Because I know the internal flaws of it. I know what’s wrong with things. Because I was in there and knew who I was working with. I know the assumptions that reporters and editors have, and how they try to please their peers,” he said.
Gutfeld said his show is different by design.
“People have had it with being told that every institution in your life is somehow oppressor vs. oppressed. The thing we did was we said we’re no different than you are. We’re looking at this stuff with a jaundiced eye. We get it. We’re on your side. So, I think it’s a combination of we’re entertainment, and we’re not homework,” he said.
Gutfeld said his show crosses boundaries because he has little regard for it.
“I’m not a cut-and-dried conservative,” Gutfeld said. “I’m not a cut-and-dried Republican — I’m not even a cut-and-dried libertarian. I don’t even know what I am.
“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,” he said.
