Resentment. Temper Tantrums. Bullying. Bad ratings.
When former Fox News star Shep Smith accepted a new multimillion-dollar deal to leave the cable news giant in 2019 for a primetime CNBC show, it’s hard to imagine those were the words he was expecting to describe his experience so far.
But The News with Shepard Smith has struggled to attract the huge number of viewers Smith enjoyed on Fox News — and his struggles have reportedly created “turmoil” within the network.
Smith’s huge salary and the immense amount of resources the network has thrown at the veteran newscaster has created “resentment” within the network, a report by The Daily Beast claimed.
The show has averaged just 197,000 viewers per day in June; that’s down almost one-third from the show’s height in February. At the time, Smith’s show was pulling in an average of 296,000 viewers per evening. It is 11th in ratings for the all-important 25-54 year old demographic among all CNBC shows, and 7th overall at the network.
A CNBC spokesman denied the reports of turmoil and told The Daily Beast the network was very happy with Smith’s performance.
“It’s been less than a year since we launched The News with Shepard Smith and we are incredibly proud of the high quality journalism and powerful storytelling the team produces every week night,” a CNBC spokesman reportedly said.
“While news viewers’ habits take time to change, The News has far outperformed in the 7pm timeslot from the same time period in 2020 and in June, viewers watched 7.2 million hours across TV, digital and social platforms, which was double-digit percentage growth month-over-month.”
Smith isn’t the first former Fox News star to have left the network under controversial circumstances, only to struggle with his ratings.
Former Fox News star Megyn Kelly most famously left the network in 2016 for an eye-watering $69 million, 3-year deal from NBC News… only to be unceremoniously fired only halfway through her contract.
Kelly later started a podcast, and is currently a radio host.
FLASHBACK: Sean Hannity slams colleague Shepard Smith
.