Shepard Smith Debuts Strong by CNBC Standards, Down Big From Fox News Days

Shepard Smith’s new CNBC show, “The News With Shepard Smith,” garnered 373,000 viewers for its Wednesday night debut, according to Nielsen ratings. The show falls behind CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” MSNBC’s “Reidout” and Fox News’ “The Story With Martha McCallum” but represents an 80% increase in total viewers compared to the same day last year on CNBC, which has typically aired programs like “Shark Tank” or other reruns in the 7-8 p.m. ET timeslot. In the key 25-54 demographic, Smith’s show faltered at 56,000 viewers — an 8% decrease from 2019 on CNBC and far behind McCallum’s 521,000 and Burnett’s 501,000 — but outperformed the Wednesday airing of Fox Business’ “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” which was a post-debate special, in the key demo and in total viewers. (Dobbs’ show typically airs at 5 p.m. ET.) Also Read: Shepard Smith Returns to TV With Grim Assessment of Trump's Debate Performance The debut numbers are a big, but not surprising, decrease from Smith’s ratings when he hosted Fox News’ “Shepard Smith Reporting,” which brought in an average 1.3 million viewers in his final months at the network. Opening his show, Shepard Smith focused on the need to cut through the “noise” of this...

Read original story Shepard Smith Debuts Strong by CNBC Standards, Down Big From Fox News Days At TheWrap