CNBC is laying off people, and Shep Smith was reportedly the first to be axed after two years on his nightly newscast. The new president said he wants to concentrate on the network’s core strength of business news, Yahoo News reports.
His last newscast will be sometime later this month. Smith has not commented.
Smith landed the job after abruptly leaving Fox in 2019, angry over Tucker Carlson’s shows and popularity.
While Smith attracted the richest viewers, there weren’t enough of them. He only attracted 220,000 a night this year, less than in the last three months of 2020. By way of contrast, Jesse Watters had 3.4 million viewers in the same time slot on Tuesday, and MSNBC’s Joy Reid [and her racist hate show] had 1.3 million. That’s according to Nielsen.
Smith was hired by the former CEO, Mark Hoffman, and the current CEO, K.C. Sullivan, axed him.
Sullivan will launch a business news show in Shep’s time slot. He said, “At a time when misinformation and disinformation are rampant, The News succeeded in providing audiences with the clearest understanding of the facts.”
People who leave Fox tend to regret it. NBC axed Megyn Kelly. Chris Wallace would have been axed if CNN could have afforded to buy out his contract. Those are two examples. There are others.
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