PROBLEMS: The regulars return to two programs on Fox!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2024

You can't run a nation on this: In fairness, let's be fair.

Last week's broadcasts of The Five involved some holiday casting. As of yesterday afternoon, several regulars had returned to the cast. 

According to TV Newser, The Five was the most watched surviving program in all of cable news last year. The only program with higher ratings was the long-departed madness from Tucker Carlson.

That leaves The Five at the top of the pile. During yesterday afternoon's airing, these were the program's players:

Conservative players:
Jesse Watters (initial moderator)
Greg Gutfeld
Dana Perino 

Jeanine Pirro

Liberal players:
Jessica Tarlov

As always, the program featured its trademark four-to-one partisan ratio. Remarkably, that earns Fox a gold medal in "viewpoint diversity" in present-day "cable news!" 

In fairness, let's be fair! Gutfeld was the only comedian in yesterday's 5 p.m. lineup. At 10 p.m. Eastern, he was back on the air as the host of his eponymous nightly program, Gutfeld! 

Again according to TVNewser, Gutfeld! boasts a larger viewership that any nightly program on CNN or MSNBC. These were the dramatis personae during last evening's prime-time hour:

Comedian players:
Greg Gutfeld (moderator)
Joe Machi 
Jim Norton
Kat Timpf

Non-comedian players:
Kennedy

There was that four-to-one ration again! This time, the four comedians were balanced off by the one former VJ.

(Tyrus, the former professional wrestling champion, appeared on neither of yesterday's programs. That said, Fox began airing a promotional ad for Nuff Said, the former wrestler's upcoming stand-up comedy special.)

We direct your attention to a fascinating aspect of that 10 p.m. lineup at Gutfeld! At this particular "cable news" channel, corporate executives have decided that it makes sense to turn a nightly, prime-time cable news hour over to "discussions" of "news topics" in which almost all the panelists are (at best) mid-level stand-up comedians.

The types of conversations which result are perhaps a bit predictable. Beyond that, a great deal of BLEEPing occurs as these giants of erudition discuss the events of the day. 

There may be less analytical prowess. Let's return to yesterday's edition of The Five:

In fairness, the panelists discussed a pair of actual news topics during the program's first half hour. To watch the entire broadcast, you can start by clicking here.

In the program's initial segment, the panelists focused on the resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard. Nuff said!

In the program's second segment, the focus was on certain aspects of immigration policy and urban crime. Serving as moderator, Gutfeld introduced this segment in the manner shown:

GUTFELD (1/3/24): It's the oldest story in the book. Liberal policies do a number on Democrat-run cities, sowing chaos, crime and poop-infested streets...

So began the panel's discussion of the chaos, and the crime, in the poop-infested streets.

As he proceeded, Gutfeld played tape of two Democratic mayors issuing cries of alarm concerning these serious topics. He then threw to Watters, who offered this first attempt at analysis, though only after he and Gutfeld had swapped a few "hair product" jokes:

WATTERS: I think what happened was—is that the Trump Derangement Syndrome, combined with the George Floyd hysteria, triggered all of these anxious Democrats who already had Daddy issues, who were already incredibly insecure, to become radical racial revolutionaries...

An unspecified group of anxious Democrats had "already had Daddy issues," the fatuous flyweight said. Let it be noted that Watters is now host of the Fox News Channel's increasingly smarmy 8 p.m. program, a heavily tabloid show.

In fairness, let's be fair! It can at least be said that those first two segments dealt with recognizable "news topics." That said, the second segment ended at 5:26 p.m., and the panelists' patience may have been flagging. 

During the second half of the program, they addressed a trio of topics which were perhaps a bit more entertaining:

Should women be allowed to box professionally against men? 

What would be the best ways to rebrand Mickey Mouse in horror or action moves?

These were two of the topics these flyweights sifted as their attention spans waned.

That said, the middle segment on these three focused on President Biden and his current sunburn. Can you run a large modern nation on Stupid? The panelists were plainly willing to try, producing a conversation which generated such chyrons as these:

BIDEN SPORTS LOBSTER RED SUNBURN

SUN-BURNED BIDEN
BIDEN RETURNS FROM VACATION W/ BRIGHT RED FACE

BEACH BUM BIDEN

DARK BRANDON
BIDEN PLANS TO DEMONIZE MAGA IN CAMPAIGN EVENTS

We're trying to convey the general sense of the segment without being forced to transcribe it. Meanwhile, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's all dead-end comedy now!

Can you run a large modern nation on flat-out Partisan Stupid? More and more, it has become abundantly clear that one channel is willing to try.

Increasingly, Fox News is replacing the culture of partisan bombast with the culture of partisan open-mike night. This large change in corporate culture has largely occurred without notice. 

Tomorrow, we'll return to the discussion from the December 27 edition of The Five—the discussion we cited in yesterday's report. Simply put, the sheer stupidity of the panelists' conduct that day defines an existential problem for our large, badly floundering, red and blue tribal nation.

For the record, we're focusing on red tribe cable this week—but is blue tribe cable that much better, or is it simply different? Next week, we'll switch our color wheel over to the blue.

Can you run a large nation on Too Elite and Too Cool For School? As we watch our blue tribe flounder and flail, we suspect that the answer is coming into view.

Tomorrow: The professional wrestler's tale