Laura Ingraham Reportedly Going Prime Time On The Fox News Channel
About a month ago, the Inquisitr reported that a Laura Ingraham prime-time show was in the works on Fox News, and apparently a deal has been struck or is very close to being finalized.
According to what sources are telling CNN, Ingraham will anchor the 10 p.m. Eastern hour Monday thorough Friday, with Sean Hannity moving back to 9 p.m., his former time slot before he made way for Megyn Kelly and The Kelly File. Megyn Kelly jumped to NBC News earlier this year.
After many years of stability, Fox News has engaged in a lot of musical chairs with its prime-time lineup following the abrupt departure of Bill O’Reilly and the end of The O’Reilly Factor in April as well as Megyn Kelly’s exit. Tucker Carlson Tonight switched from 9 p.m., where he immediately achieved strong ratings after Kelly left, to assume the prestigious O’Reilly 8 p.m. platform and has thrived there as well.
The Five ensemble show then moved from 5 p.m. Eastern to 9, but has often finished behind Rachel Maddow on MSNBC in the ratings books. With the departure of Eric Bolling (an original Five co-host in the center chair) and the cancellation of his show the Fox News Specialists last Friday, The Five is expected to return to its original, pre-Specialists time period at 5 p.m. where where it succeeded as a surprise hit. The Five was originally conceived as a temporary placeholder when Glenn Beck left to form his own network.
Scoop: Laura Ingraham is expected to take over 10pm on Fox News. Sean Hannity moving to 9pm, "The Five" back to 5 https://t.co/nrRGdq3OFW
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 11, 2017
Hannity has been pre-taping some of his broadcasts, and it’s unknown at this point if Ingraham, a single mother of three, will do a live or taped show at the 10 p.m. hour. Fox News has yet to officially confirm, however, that it has hired Ingraham as a full-time host, CNN added.
“Putting Ingraham at 10 p.m. is an important bet by Fox News, and it comes with some risk. The network rarely shuffles its lineup like this. But Ingraham is well known and well liked among Fox viewers. On her radio show and her Fox appearances, she channels the feelings of President Trump’s base and challenges Republican establishment figures. At times she is critical of Trump, too — but in a way that positions her as a champion for the voters who elected him….Fox is accustomed to winning every hour of every day, thanks to its incredibly loyal right-leaning audience, so the shifting of Hannity may be an attempt to fortify the 9 p.m. time slot.”
Speculation previously emerged that Ingraham would get the nod to directly compete with Maddow, so it remains to be seen what the new Fox News Channel prime-time schedule will look like in its final form, assuming the CNN report proves accurate.
A longtime Fox News contributor and substitute host on the network, Laura Ingraham, 54, also anchored her own program on MSNBC in the 1990s. Along with her syndicated radio show, she is an author and the editor in chief of the LifeZette website, and a political commentator on ABC’s This Week.
A vocal foe of the Never Trump Republicans and liberal Democrats, Laura Ingraham is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia law school and worked in the Reagan administration as a speechwriter and for Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court. There is no launch date for the Ingraham show, according to CNN’s unnamed sources, which will air from FNC’s Washington, D.C. bureau.
[Featured Image by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images]
