All of Fox News’ “The Five” is back in the studio Monday, one of the largest casts and crews to get back together in-house amid the pandemic.
“The Five” won’t utilize its signature desk anymore. Instead, Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Juan Williams and the daily rotating co-host will be sitting on stools in a semicircle layout, spaced six feet apart to comply with social distancing guidelines.
In place of the desk, they each have their own table.
After nearly half a year working from home, Perino told TheWrap, “I’ll always remember doing the show sitting crossed-legged on a stool, [my dog] Jasper sleeping at my feet, and willing the train whistle to come during a commercial break and not during one of my colleague’s turns to speak.”
Gutfeld added, “My most memorable moment from broadcasting remotely was during Hurricane Isaias when a tree fell blocking me from getting to the van so I had to go through two backyards of my neighbors to meet the engineer in a church parking lot to record the show as the storm raged. It’s amazing I got there in one piece.”
Even during the pandemic and various crises, when shows at all networks were broadcasting primarily from hosts’ homes, “The Five” was a ratings juggernaut.
In an August full of political conventions and breaking news, each major cable news network saw high total viewership and Fox News was the top network in cable. “The Five,” in particular, beat CNN and MSNBC’s primetime shows from its 5 p.m. ET time slot.
In total, “The Five” averaged 3.446 million total viewers, of whom 527,000 were in the demo. “Maddow,” the only non-Fox News show in the top five, averaged 3.116 million, with 470,000 in the demo.
The hosts and show crew are returning to a Fox News that looks different than the one they left. Fox News staffers have seen a number of new protocols rolled out in recent months, like requirements they take their temperature before entering the office. Last week, Fox News saw layoffs amid a restructuring, too. The hair and makeup department was impacted by the coronavirus and most of the staffing losses took place there. Guests on Fox News programs will no longer have hair and makeup services made available to them, but hosts and anchors still do.