CNBC’s news show with Shep Smith has low ratings

Shepard Smith (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)

Paul Farhi of The Washington Post writes about the early ratings of CNBC’s evening news show featuring new hire Shepard Smith.

Farhi writes, “Since his debut in late September, ‘The News With Shepard Smith’ has averaged a modest 280,000 viewers each weeknight at 7 p.m. That’s twice as many viewers as the ‘Shark Tank’ reruns it replaced — but a fraction of the 2 million-plus viewers that CNN, Fox and MSNBC each attract at the same hour. ‘The News’ even finishes behind CNBC’s main rival, Fox Business Network, which airs a rerun of Trump-loyalist commentator Lou Dobbs’s program. The hot new cable news show at the moment isn’t Smith’s handsomely produced hour; it’s one hosted by another former Fox denizen, Greg Kelly, on the conservative Newsmax channel that proffers baseless claims about how the election was ‘stolen’ from Trump.

“This during a year when an explosion of news has bolstered the ratings for many other traditional newscasts. So if it isn’t attracting a crowd right now, when would it?

“Smith, 56, says he’s been so focused on producing his show that he hasn’t spent much time thinking about how many people are watching it.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Next ProPublica's Dudley, Golden to write book on ransomware »

Previous « Talking Biz News Today -- Dec. 4, 2020

View Comments

Joe says:
January 27, 2021 at 5:49 pm
To get higher ratings, Smith should do a follow up on the triple mask story, adding and demonstrating how China is now doing anal swab testing for Covid (thats a real thing, look it up).
Think of all the publicity Couric got doing her colonoscopy on tv. This could give Smiths career a well needed push.