Could Fox News Primetime have a new, permanent host?
Fox News debuted the show on Jan. 18, replacing The Story with Martha MacCallum with a rotating opinion host every week — and one star has clearly become a fan favorite.
Reports say that former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., is returning for a second week as host after scoring the highest rating of any host.
Could this signal that Fox News is going to make him the permanent host?
Gowdy helmed the show for the week of Feb. 1 and averaged 1.99 million viewers. That has even outshined established Fox News star Brian Kilmeade, who averaged 1.96 million viewers during his week — getting 347,000 viewers in the key demographic ages 25-54.
Other hosts have included Maria Bartiromo, Mark Steyn, Rachel Campos-Duffy, and Katie Pavlich. Next week, Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones will helm the show.
“Bartiromo, who hosted the show’s second week, had 1.88 million average total viewers, and 305,000 in the demo (just behind Gowdy’s average of 307,000 demo viewers during his week),” Mediaite reported. “Both post-Gowdy hosts have seen a dip in the ratings, with Steyn, who hosted the week of Feb. 8, averaging 1.75 million total viewers and 243,000 in the demo, and Campos-Duffy, who hosted the week of Feb. 15, averaging 1.73 million total viewers and 269,000 in the demo.”
Since the 2020 election, Fox News has struggled with ratings. The once-King of cable news has faced a large viewer backlash in terms of trust, too.
A USA Today/Suffolk poll reported this week that Fox News had lost 24 points in a poll about viewer trust.
Fox News is still, by far, the most trusted news network/media source among previously identified Trump voters from various state and national polls taken in 2020. Among Trump voters, 34% trusted Fox News the most, followed by 17% for Newsmax, 9% for One America News Network, with every other network at 3% or less.
The above numbers, however, also paint a drastically different picture than the numbers four years ago. In late October 2016, Suffolk University and USA TODAY conducted a national poll of likely presidential election voters, and among those who said they would support Trump over Clinton, a whopping 58% trusted Fox News the most. At the time of our October 2016 poll, OANN and Newsmax were barely 4 years old, so they were not offered as options. However, we do not believe that in 2016 they would have been trusted the most by a statistically significant portion of respondents.
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