THE DISAPPEARED: Gutfeld! isn't a "late night" show!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2025

Obvious fact disappears: As you may have heard, the Fox News Channel's Gutfeld! program is, according to Nielsen, the third most-watched TV show in all of "cable news."

Its host also tends to dominate proceedings as a co-host on The Five–and The Five has the highest viewership of any "cable news" program!

On this perfectly reasonable basis, the New York Times has published two profiles of Greg Gutfeld and his insult-driven Gutfeld! show within the past two months. Today, we'll focus on two remarkably bogus ideas those profiles have continued to promulgate.

The first such misconception was sitting in the dual headline above this profile of Kat Timpf, one of Greg Gutfeld's nightly sidekicks on his eponymous Gutfeld! show. The profile of Timpf appeared in late September. It sat beneath these headlines:

A Baby. A Double Mastectomy. Many Opinions From Fox News Viewers.
Kat Timpf got pregnant, got breast cancer, then got back to work on the political comedy show “Gutfeld!”—all as a culture war brews over ambition, motherhood and women’s health.

That was (and is) the dual headline. Our question would be this:

Is Gutfeld! a "political comedy show?" Is it a "comedy show" at all?

That's the way the Fox News Channel describes the insult-driven show, but is that characterization accurate? We would say that the answer is no. 

We'd say that Gutfeld! is a corporate messaging show. We'd say its tribal messaging is smuggled in under cover of comedy stylings.

We're sorry, but Gutfeld! simply isn't a "comedy show" in the way that designation might suggest. Each night, the program opens with two or three minutes of jokes delivered by its highly transgressive host, but he then delivers a monologue on some issue or topic and the mayhem proceeds from there.

Over the course of four or five segments, the host states his view with respect to a series of such topics. After Gutfeld has stayed his view, a hand-picked panel of four stooges proceed to express their agreement with everything he has said.

On most evenings, two or three of these savants may be D-list comedians. But this is not your mother or father's "comedy show" in the way that term will imply.

That first misconception was sitting right there in that New York Times headline. The second misconception takes the form of a flat misstatement of fact.

That misstatement is advanced, right from the jump, in the newspaper's new interview / profile of Greg Gutfeld himself. The profile, written by David Marchese, appeared online last weekend. The coming Sunday, the profile is slated to appear in print editions as part of the New York Times Magazine. 

The profile of Gutfeld is already available online. As he starts, Marchese advances a flat misstatement of fact–and it's clear that Marchese knows this.

As we noted yesterday, this is the way the new interview / profile starts, New York Times headline included:

The Interview
Fox News Wanted Greg Gutfeld to Do This Interview. He Wasn’t So Sure.

Why can’t conservatives break through on late-night TV? For years, that was an open cultural question. The left, of course, had “The Daily Show” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” among others. Once the Trump era began, progressives could also point to hosts like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers as being politically simpatico. The right had, well, no one.

That is, until Greg Gutfeld. Formerly a health and men’s magazine editor, Gutfeld joined Fox News in 2007 to helm the later-than-late-night chat free-for-all “Red Eye.” He worked his way up the network’s schedule, and in 2021 his new show, “Gutfeld!” started airing on weekday nights at 11 p.m. on the East Coast. (It’s now on at 10 p.m.) Its format is different from traditional host-driven late-night shows: Rather than interview celebrity guests, Gutfeld presides over a round table of regular panelists, among them the former professional wrestler Tyrus and the commentator Kat Timpf, the designated (occasional) contrarian. The overall vibe is insult-heavy, aggressively anti-woke and relentlessly pro-conservative. It’s a successful formula. The show averages over three million viewers a night—numbers that dwarf its competitors’.

Sad.

Much of what Marchese writes in that opening passage is perfectly accurate. That said, some of what he writes plainly isn't–and it's already clear that Marchese understands that fact.

In our view, Marchese's portrait of the content of this show–or at least of the program's "vibe"–is perfectly accurate. The contents of this messaging vehicle are exactly as Marchese says:

The program's contents are indeed "insult-heavy, aggressively anti-woke and relentlessly pro-conservative." That "vibe" originates with its 61-year-old host and is then aped by an ever-changing nightly panel of four reliable stooges.

(On most nights, that congregation will include the aforementioned Timpf, the program's "designated (occasional) contrarian." For ourselves, we'd be inclined to add the word "very" before the word "occasional.")

To his credit, Marchese has apparently watched enough Gutfeld! broadcasts to offer a bit of skepticism about the program's casting. He's willing to say that Timpf has been placed within the cast to offer "occasional" contrarian views–but he also serves as Gutfeld's fifth stooge when he describes the Gutfeld! program as a "late-night show" whose viewership numbers "dwarf" the numbers of "its competitors."

Within the realm of "cable news," Gutfeld! actually is a heavily watched program. But based upon standard industry parlance, the program simply isn't a "late night show," and it's already clear that Marchese knows that.

Fellow Times subscribers, please! Is Gutfeld! really a late-night show? As Marchese plainly knows, these are some of this program's additional numbers:

When the Gutfeld! program airs:
Eastern time zone: 10 p.m.
Central time zone: 9 p.m.
Mountain time zone: 8 p.m.
Pacific time zone: 7 p.m.

Right there in Gotham itself, Gutfeld! airs at 10 p.m. Based on long-standing industry parlance, that fact would seem to mean that Gutfeld! is really a primetime program. 

In Gotham, it doesn't air at 11:30 p.m., the traditional starting time for "late night" (comedy) shows. But the misstatement in question becomes more glaring as we venture across the fruited plain. discovering that Gutfeld! goes to air at these times in other well-known cities:

When the Gutfeld! program airs:
Chicago, Houston, Dallas: 9 p.m.
Denver, sometimes Phoenix: 8 p.m.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle: 7 p.m.

For the record, the Tonight show airs at 11:35 in New York–and at the same time out on the coast. By way of contrast, Gutfeld! airs at 10 p.m. in New York City, but at 7 p.m. in Hollywood and all the way up the west coast!

On what planet has any such program ever been described as a "late night" show? We'd say the question answers itself–and Marchese's insertion of the highlighted term seems to show us that he knows about this nationwide broadcast schedule:

In 2021 his new show, “Gutfeld!” started airing on weekday nights at 11 p.m. on the East Coast. (It’s now on at 10 p.m.)

The key phrase there is "on the East Coast." Marchese seems to understand the way this insult-driven program airs across the country. 

(It's possible that other journalists haven't understood this matter in other Gutfeld-friendly reports about the Gutfeld! program.)

Why do we say that Marchese's opening passage is "Gutfeld-friendly?" To make the matter perfectly clear, here' the rest of Marchese's opening passage, continuing directly from above:

So Gutfeld, who is also a host of the daytime show “The Five” alongside Dana Perino and Jesse Watters, can now credibly lay claim to the title “king of late night.” (Also the name of his 2023 nonfiction book.) But it’s a kingdom in turmoil, with CBS announcing it is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next year and ABC briefly suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s show after comments he made related to Charlie Kirk’s murder. Those decisions were viewed by many as politically motivated and also as a possible infringement on free speech. This at a time when questions about the long-term future of late night as a viable genre—as well as censorship in comedy—are thick in the air. About all that, and much more, Gutfeld had plenty to say about in his own pugnacious fashion.

Sad. Back in 2023, in his own pugnacious way, Gutfeld dubbed himself "the king of late night." He did so in the title of one of his flyweight books. 

Two years later, Marchese is willing to advance this claim on Gutfeld's behalf, even though he seems to know that the claim is baldly inaccurate.

Is the Gutfeld! program a "comedy show?" We'd call that claim misleading. But is it a "late night" (comedy) show? We'd call that claim laughably false. 

It airs at 7 p.m. in L.A.! According to traditional industry parlance, prime time hasn't even started when this show airs on the west coast!

Marchese is widely praised for his interview / profiles. For ourselves, we don't have the slightest idea why a competent, fully informed mainstream journalist would want to carry messaging water for a pugnacious, insult-driven fellow like Gutfeld or for the Fox News Channel.

As noted, Gutfeld's program does have a very large viewership within the "cable news" context. That said, it isn't a "late night" comedy show. Indeed, it doesn't occupy a traditional "late night" time slot anywhere in this nation!

We don't have the slightest idea why Marchese chose to be the latest journalist to push this bit of marketing bluster in service to Gutfeld and Fox. We're willing to float the possibility that his editor doctored his copy. 

That said, that copy did advance a phony claim in service to Gutfeld and Fox–and it seems to us that Marchese performed an additional service to Gutfeld as his interview proceeded.

In our view, Marchese performs an additional service. Joining a journalistic cast of thousands, he makes the actual contents of this insult-driven "cable news" show fade and then disappear.

Tomorrow: Weird conduct disappeared