Fox Corp’s Fox Business Network has canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” a weekday program hosted by the business journalist and vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, the company said on Friday.
Reuters reports news of the cancellation came one day after Dobbs, 75, was named as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by voting machine maker Smartmatic, which argued that three Fox hosts, including Dobbs, falsely accused the company of helping to rig the election against Trump.
Fox said the move to end Dobbs’ show had been in the works before the lawsuit as part of a revamp following the November U.S. presidential election in which Republican Trump was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden.
On the Smartmatic lawsuit, Fox said on Thursday the network was “proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court.”
The cancellation of Dobbs’ show was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which said the anchor was unlikely to appear on Fox channels again even though he remains under contract.
Dobbs’ show ran at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern time on Fox Business Network, and he appeared at times as a commentator on Fox News Channel.
Starting Monday, the 5 p.m. show will be called “Fox Business Tonight,” and be repeated at 7 p.m.
In January, Fox announced that Larry Kudlow, a former top economic adviser to Trump, would be hosting a new weekday show on the Fox Business Network.
Dobbs rose to fame as a CNN anchor, becoming a mainstay of television business news. He began hosting his Fox program in 2011, lured by the network’s co-founder Roger Ailes, and was watched by a soon-to-be-very influential fan: Trump, who shared Dobbs’s right-wing values, particularly the anchor’s hard-line stance against unchecked immigration.
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