Fox News Channel officially launches its new primetime lineup tonight (July 17) with the hopes of positioning itself with viewers heading into the 2024 presidential campaign.

The lineup features Jesse Watters Primetime taking over the 8 p.m. time slot vacated by Tucker Carlson Tonight, which the network canceled in late April, along with Hannity, hosted by Sean Hannity, remaining at 9 p.m. Late-night show Gutfeld!, hosted by Greg Gutfeld, moves into the 10 p.m. time slot from 11 p.m.

Fox News @ Night with Trace Gallagher moves up an hour to take over the 11 p.m. time slot. Gallagher, who’s been with Fox News since the network’s launch in 1996 and serves as its chief breaking news correspondent, talked about the network’s new lineup as well as his show’s move to 11 p.m. in a recent interview — a lightly edited version of which appears below. 

MCN: What does the time change mean for you personally and for the show in general? 

Trace Gallagher: Selfishly, it gives us back an extra hour of the day. We're out in Los Angeles which means it's 8 o'clock, so we’re finishing at 9 o'clock. You've really got a little bit of a night left. It helps even if it’s just psychologically. For the show, it gives us a bigger audience. We've done well at midnight in the demo, especially over the past couple of weeks. For us, it gives us a chance to improve the product and to get more eyeballs looking at what we're doing. We love our midnight audience and we hope they follow us, but the new time gives us a chance to be able to put some things out there for different people and to see what works, and to see what's hitting and what's not. Our goal is to be the last informational source most viewers see that night, and I think that’s what we’re proud of — that’s what we’ve been doing, and we’re going to stay on that path. 

MCN: Will you look to change the show given the new time slot?

TG: It's funny because when we were at midnight, the idea was to keep people awake, so we shortened the segments. The hope was we're gonna do guests in 2½ minutes, maybe 3 minutes — you have to be compelling enough to give viewers a reason to stay up with you. Well, we love the format so much that we started to ask, ‘Why would we change it?’ So we’re going to keep this thing exactly the same. We might tweak as we go along, but the truth is, I like the pace. You get a lot of information, you get a lot of different viewpoints, and then you get a chance in the last couple of blocks of the show to maybe slow it down just a little bit and show some personality, and maybe do some lighter stuff. We think our current format is successful for us. 

MCN: Are you concerned about the added competition from both national cable news outlets and local broadcast news that you will now have to go up against? 

TG: The old saying is that those who hate competition are the ones who are ill-equipped to compete. I love the fact that there are two other cable news networks that are doing shows at 11 that we now get to compete against. It’ll show how good we are and if we need to change or adjust some things. At midnight, they were mostly playing repeats of their shows and we were winning resoundingly. The competition doesn’t intimidate me one bit — in fact I think it benefits our show.

MCN: Your show’s move is part of a bigger primetime lineup change for Fox News. Are you confident viewers will continue to tune into the network in the same numbers? 

TG: People are going to look at our lineup of [Laura Ingraham’s The Ingraham Angle] through Jesse [Watters] through Hannity and Gutfeld before us. Gutfeld! In particular is a great lead-in for us because clearly he is a draw, and the bigger the lead-in, the better we tend to do. Our job is to hold his audience as long as we possibly can. 

MCN: What do you think are going to be the biggest news headlines  going into the second half of the year?

TG: I think what everyone is looking at closely is how the GOP primary is going to shake out. Where does [Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis] pick up numbers? Does [former President Donald Trump] eventually start to bleed some numbers or does he get stronger? On the other side of the aisle there’s a lot of speculation as to whether Joe Biden is really the guy the Democrats are going with going forward. Is he in and is he committed? So there are a lot of unknowns. Meanwhile in the background, there are these cultural battles within the country and they are going to be fought on the ground, particularly with mom groups that are pushing better education, more charter schools, homeschooling and overall more school choice across the board. I think that’s a big issue we’re going to be looking at as well. 

Laura Ingraham, host of The Ingraham Angle on Fox News Channel, celebrates 15 years at Fox News, and five years for the show. With The Ingraham Angle hitting the anniversary mark October 30, Ingraham spoke with Broadcasting+Cable about her highlights at Fox News, how much more divided our nation might get, cable news’s role in the great divide, and the guest she’d most like to have on The Ingraham Angle. 

Ingraham said she’d love to have Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, on The Ingraham Angle. “I’d actually like to have a real conversation with her because I think she’s super-smart,” Ingraham said. “She’s obviously done an amazing job for her ideological position. I don’t agree with her on pretty much everything, but it would be nice to actually have a conversation with her.”

(Pelosi’s husband was attacked in a home invasion October 28, after Ingraham spoke with B+C.)

Ingraham said they tease Pelosi frequently on the show, but added that it is in good humor. 

Asked if Pelosi has been invited on The Ingraham Angle, Ingraham said it probably happened years ago. “Thank you for reminding me,” she said. “I think we should do it again.”

Her show airs at 10 p.m., leading out of Hannity. Asked what The Ingraham Angle offers that viewers don’t get anywhere else, Ingraham said, a different perspective on the key issues. “I have a unique perspective because I came from the world of government, but the law was my focus for a number of years,” she said. “So I think I have the legal and the conservative movement experience that does set me apart.”

Viewers are “going to hear and see new information and new angles” on the show, she added, even on “stories that you might have heard mentioned earlier in the day.”

With the midterms approaching, Ingraham said America is “on a knife’s edge.” She sees the GOP prevailing in both the House and the Senate November 8. “If you’re the party in power, you can’t spin this. This isn’t a communication problem, this is a policy problem,” she said. 

Ingraham mentioned crime and the economy as the key issues. “People are getting poorer and the country’s getting weaker,” said Ingraham. 

We asked Ingraham about our divided nation, and if that will get worse. She said that the division has become “the accepted narrative” in America, and cited “the government taking over so much of our lives” as a factor, as well as a “media bubble” that lacks diversity of opinion. 

To what degree are cable news outlets, and their political pundits, responsible for the divisiveness? Ingraham did not address the question directly. “I think we’re reflecting what the people feel,” said Ingraham. “I think people are seeing the country they love slip away.”

We also discussed whether these political pundits should be permitted to appear at political rallies, as some Fox News hosts have done in the past. She admitted not having “a great sense about that,” but said she could see a problem for “supposedly objective anchors” speaking at such events. The pundits, whose political viewpoints are a secret to no one, may be in a different group. 

“It’s not a secret that I’m a conservative,” Ingraham added. 

Ingraham’s media consumption touches on just about everything, she said: The Atlantic, The Economist, The Independent (U.K.), BBC, The National Post (Canada) and The Wall Street Journal, among others. “I read a lot of the stuff on the left,” she said, “because I want to know what the left is thinking or what they are planning.”

Ingraham, who worked at MSNBC and CBS News before Fox News, said launching The Ingraham Angle has been the highlight of her 15 years with the company. She called it “exciting, insane … in a good way” and “a fun endeavor.”

“It’s been a great privilege to be given time with viewers every night,” Ingraham said.  ■ 

Fox News on March 26 will air a special edition of its primetime news show The Ingraham Angle focused on education.

The Ingraham Angle Town Hall: Time for Class -- hosted by Laura Ingraham -- will focus on the impact the pandemic has had on Virginia students, teachers, and parents, said the network. Among the topics that will be covered during the special include the challenges of virtual learning and the debate surrounding reopening schools.

The town hall will feature audience-submitted questions as well as additional guests, including former White House senior coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas and Stanford University medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, said the network.

Fox News continued its dominance of the weekly cable ratings charts, easily topping all cable networks across primetime and total day.

Fox News averaged 2.2 million viewers in primetime during the week of June 10 to June 16, well above second place MSNBC’s 1.5 million viewers for its fourth straight weekly win in the category. The network was paced by its primetime lineup of Hannity, Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle, which between the daily shows represented nine of the 10 most watched shows on cable last week, according to Nielsen.

HGTV finished third for the week with 1.3 million viewers, followed by A&E’s 1.1 million viewers and USA Network’s 1.0 watchers, said Nielsen. History (959,000), Hallmark Channel (926,000), TBS (911,000), Investigation Discovery (896,000) and TLC (892,000) filled out the top 10 most watched shows of the week.

Fox News also took top honors in the total day category for the 23rd consecutive week, besting in order MSNBC, HGTV, Investigation Discovery and Nickelodeon, according to Nielsen. 

The ad boycott against Fox News Channel’s Ingraham Angle has cost the program about half of its commercial minutes and five of its top 20 advertisers, according to Kantar Media.

Kantar found that ad time on the Ingraham Angle was down 40% during the show’s March 30 telecast and down 52% on March 31. The show had been averaging 14 minutes and 33 second of ads during the first quarter.

Host Laura Ingraham announced that she will be on vacation this week. She apologized for remarks she made about David Hogg, one of the students who is advocating for tighter controls on guns after surviving the shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Despite the apology, Hogg and others have continued the boycott.

On Monday (April 3), Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy said he expected Ingraham to be back next week. “We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts,” he said.

Kantar said that five of the advertisers that have said they will no longer advertise on the Ingraham Angle — Bayer AG Group, Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, Liberty Mutual Insurance and Wayfair — were among the top 20 spenders on the show during the first quarter.

Other advertisers that have pulled out of the show — Entertainment Studios, Honda, Jenny Craig, Jos A Bank, Nestle, Nutrish, Office Depot, Principal Finance, Progressive Insurance, Ruby Tuesday, Stitch Fix and TripAdvisor — accounted for 13% of the show’s commercial time.

Fox News Monday officially announced the Oct. 30 launch of its new primetime news program The Ingraham Angle, starring conservative talk personality Laura Ingraham.

The series will debut in the daily 10 p.m. timeslot on the network, moving the Sean Hannity-hosted series Hannity to the 9 p.m. slot, where it will go head to head with MSNBC’s top rated series The Rachel Maddow Show.

Fox News talk show series The Five, which currently airs at 9 p.m., will move back to its former 5 p.m. time slot, according to Fox.

The move comes nearly two weeks after Fox News cancelled its 5 p.m. show The Fox News Specialists after that show's host Eric Bolling parted ways with the network after sexual harrassment allegations surrounding Bolling surfaced. 

 “We are delighted to unveil this new primetime schedule for both our current and future generation of loyal FNC fans,” said Suzanne Scott, Fox news president of programming in a statement. “Over the last decade, Laura’s extraordinary insight, expertise and strong voice have connected with our viewers across the network’s programming. We look forward to her providing the audience with her exceptional commentary, engaging insight and spirited debate.”

According to Fox News, The Ingraham Angle will feature Ingraham as she challenges decision makers to focus on everyday, hard-working Americans as well as highlight the importance of faith in our nation and reveal stories that showcase the American spirit.

The announcement comes as Fox News remains among the most watched networks on cable television. The network was the highest rated network in primetime this past summer and has either held or shared the top spot on the weekly primetime cable ratings charts for the last 16 weeks, according to Nielsen.