Fox News reveals post-Carlson primetime lineup

Jesse Watters will fill the Fox News Channel time slot vacated by Tucker Carlson’s firing, part of a dramatic revamp of the network’s evening lineup announced Monday.

Greg Gutfeld’s nightly show, which mixes news and comedy, is moved up an hour and starts at 10 p.m. Eastern, replacing Laura Ingraham. She shifts to 7:00 PM, the hour Watters has occupied. Sean Hannity remains in his 9 p.m. time slot, Fox said. The new lineup will debut on July 17.

The announcement comes about two months after Fox News fired Carlson, shortly after he settled with voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems on the eve of trial. The case, which centered on the network’s broadcast of false allegations following the 2020 presidential election, exposed a wealth of private messages sent between Fox hosts, including Hannity and Carlson, criticizing colleagues at the network.

Carlson has since started doing occasional monologues for Twitter, though Fox tries to get him to stop broadcasting.

Fox has seen its ratings plummet since Carlson’s departure. Carlson averaged 3.25 million viewers at 8 p.m. in the first three months of the year, and the string of guest hosts who replaced him over the past two months usually reached less than 2 million, weakening the network’s scrutiny.

The lineup change signals that Fox is doubling down on its quirky evening programming strategy, with three sharp-tongued men filling primetime hours. It’s a triumphant return of sorts for Watters, who started at 8 p.m. and did man-in-the-street interviews and other roles for Bill O’Reilly before O’Reilly was fired in 2017.

It also means double duty for Gutfeld and Watters, who are both panelists on “The Five” and will remain there. The late-afternoon political talk show has become Fox’s most popular program.

It seemed like a priority for Fox to keep that show’s chemistry intact. Gutfeld said in a Wall Street Journal interview last week that he would no longer appear on “The Five” or do his late-night show if he got Carlson’s old time slot.

Trace Gallagher, who has been with Fox since the network began in 1996, will host a news show at 11 p.m., filling the hour that leaves Gutfeld free.

“The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have years of access to unparalleled coverage from our best-in-class team,” Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement.