King of Late Night TV: 'Here's.....Gutfeld'?

Fox News Channel’s “Gutfeld!” has overtaken the mainstays of late-night network television — including “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — in average total viewers for August, the first time a cable late-night show has sustained a total-viewership win across an entire month, according to TheWrap.

“Gutfeld!” averaged 2.19 million viewers for August, beating CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” at 2.16 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. Trailing in total average viewers were NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” at 1.34 million; ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (on hiatus for part of August) at 1.14 million and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with 383,000.

“Gutfeld!” has topped individual days and weeks before, but August was a first for any cable show.

But comparisons between “Gutfeld!” and the broadcast network lineups are not apples-to-apples, with notable key differences. While “Gutfeld” gets the most eyeballs of any late-night show on TV right now — the old standard for the informal “King of Late Night” title held by names like Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and lately Colbert — the Fox News show is still middling among its broadcast counterparts in key demographics.

In the advertiser-coveted 25-54 cable demo, “Gutfeld!” came in third place for August (358,000); the Fox News show drops to fourth overall (222,000) in 18-49, the age group most important to broadcast networks and their advertisers. In the younger categories, the big winner for August was “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” which led both 25-54 and 18-49 with 382,000 and 270,000 viewers, respectively.

Though the numbers point to an aging audience for the Fox late-night entrant, that race is tightening, too. “Gutfeld!” has been surging in viewership since it was relaunched in April 2021, and has shown signs of life in younger demographics in the past.

But TV network insiders caution that the viewership comparison doesn’t completely square for scheduling reasons. “Gutfeld!” gets off to a 30-minute head start on the East Coast at 11 p.m., and is shown live from coast-to-coast, hitting much of primetime in some markets. Meanwhile the networks delay Colbert, Fallon and Kimmel for 11:35 p.m. starts in Western time zones, when fewer people are awake and watching TV.

But in some ways, the fact that “Gutfeld!” is on cable, with a smaller audience to draw from, makes the network-beating viewership numbers all the more impressive.