Why "Gutfeld!" is the Highest-Rated Political Comedy Show on Cable
It's not because it's good
Did you know about this?
It’s true: Gutfeld! — the Fox News comedy starring Greg Gutfeld that launched last year — is the highest-rated political comedy show on cable. And by a lot: It has twice as many viewers as the second-place show, three times as many as any other show, and more than four times as many viewers as The Daily Show, which was arguably the seminal show of the genre. And, as I’ll explain further down, in some ways, the gap is even more extreme. Gutfeld! is a legitimate force in the world of late night political comedy.
This is stunning to me. I’m a long-time late night comedy super-fan: I watched Letterman, Conan, and The Daily Show pretty much every night for twenty years. Then, I wrote for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver from 2014-2020. Now, I’ve left the genre, and in a development that I didn’t see coming, I don’t watch any late night shows. Maybe I’ve changed, maybe the shows have changed, I’m not really sure; I think it might be sort of like how I used to work at Wendy’s, and after I finally quit, I didn’t eat a hamburger for a year. At any rate, my sudden detachment from late night TV has only increased my fascination with it.
The ascendance of a conservative political comedy show is, to my mind, the most interesting thing that could have happened to the genre. For decades, people wondered why there wasn't a conservative Daily Show. Fox News actually attempted one in 2007 — anyone remember the 1/2 Hour News Hour? — and it flopped. I’ve been asked many times why there’s no conservative Daily Show; I always said that it has something to do with the fact that there aren’t many conservative comedians, and that the conservative worldview isn’t compatible with the subversive nature of comedy. Now, Gutfeld! has shoved those words pretty far up my ass. So, I’ve been very curious about what Gutfeld! is doing, whether it’s any good, and what it can tell us about the state of entertainment and politics.