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 MacCallum” 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 MacCallum’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.) 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 week’s presidential debate and offered a grim analysis of President Trump’s debate performance. “The president called into question the heart of our democracy, the peaceful transition of power. Is there assurance that it’ll happen? Asked to give it, the president declined and openly sowed the seeds of distrust in the outcome,” Smith said. “We’ve never seen any of this. Not in America. But from this, we march toward the vote, and tonight we’ll lay out the facts to the best of our ability, in context and with perspective.” “The News With Shepard Smith” airs Mondays through Fridays on CNBC at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET. Lindsey Ellefson contributed to this report.