Fox News received some good news this week after it parted ways with one of its longtime presenters.
In July, the network fired Geraldo Rivera, one of its most liberal commentators, from their highly rated show “The Five” after tensions grew between Riveria and co-host Greg Gutfeld. Rivera then quit the network in response.
Riveria has since spoken out about the “very toxic” relationship that he had with an unnamed “co-host” on the show, seemingly trying to paint his former employers and colleagues in a bad light.
But despite all the backstage controversy surrounding Riveria’s exit, “The Five” seems to be doing just fine without him. The latest numbers indicate that the show is still at the top of the pecking order.
On Wednesday, TV Newser released the latest viewership numbers for the top cable news channels: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
“The Five” easily came out on top as the number-one show on cable news, with 2,728,000 total viewers, followed by “Watters” with 2,490,000 viewers and “Hannity” with 2,238,000 viewers.
No show on CNN or MSNBC came even close to those numbers.
It seems as if Rivera’s nasty exit from the show has had no effect on viewership numbers. The show seems to be doing better than ever, and many people may enjoy the show more without Riveria’s presence.
As a liberal, Rivera never quite fit into the network ideologically, which would have been fine, except for the fact that he constantly found himself getting into nasty shouting matches with guests and other presenters.
Even Rivera himself has said that Fox made the right decision in getting rid of him.
It’s not as if there is no room on Fox News for a dissenting viewpoint, but Riveria could not keep his cool when conversing with people who disagreed with him.
Now, with Rivera gone, it seems as if “The Five” has been able to move on and bring in even more viewers.
These latest numbers will be welcome news to Fox’s executives, who have been struggling to bring viewers back to the network after they abruptly fired Tucker Carlson back in April.
At the time, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the network’s most popular show and the most-watched program on cable news. Getting rid of Carlson was a massive misstep for Fox that tarnished its reputation with its conservative base.
But it does not seem as if all hope is lost for Fox News. They are still outdoing CNN and MSNBC in viewership numbers.
Perhaps Rivera’s departure will be the thing that saves the network from complete collapse.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.