Former Fox News host Shepard Smith’s new show on CNBC has fallen behind other 7 p.m. news broadcasts in ratings, including a repeat of Lou Dobbs’s show on Fox Business.
The News with Shepard Smith came in last among other 7 p.m. news shows from Sept. 30 to Oct. 22, with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, CNN’s Erin Burnett, and Fox News’s Martha MacCallum beating Smith in ratings, Mediate reported.
Smith’s show has also received fewer viewers than a 7 p.m. repeat of Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, which originally airs at 5 p.m. on the network. The 7 p.m. repeat of Dobbs’s show pulled in 305,000 viewers, while Smith’s show averaged 272,000 viewers from the end of September to Oct. 22.
The News with Shepard Smith saw 343,000 total viewers during its first week on air but declined to 268,000 in its second week, and 254,000 in its third, according to Nielsen ratings.
Smith left Fox News, where he averaged more than a million viewers, in 2019.
“A personal moment now. Gathering and reporting the news has been my life’s work. Thirty-three years, the past 23 right here, since the day we launched Fox News Channel in 1996. The opportunities afforded this guy from small-town Mississippi have been a many. Fox News has allowed me to travel the world gathering the facts of the day for you,” Smith stated last October.
CNBC said in a statement that the network has received positive feedback on the new show.
“We are pleased with the launch of The News with Shepard Smith and have received very positive feedback from viewers. Not only is CNBC a new entrant in the general news genre, but news viewers are creatures of habit and it takes a long time to change those habits. That said, the newscast far exceeds the audience of The Kudlow Report, which was the last regular news program to air on CNBC in the 7p hour back in the first quarter of 2014. We will continue to fight for every viewer every weeknight,” CNBC told Mediate of Smith’s ratings.
