Former “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace’s CNN show debuted with lackluster ratings — losing big to his former network’s Sunday evening show hosted by former Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC).
According to a report from RadarOnline, Wallace’s much-touted interview show — titled “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” — racked up only 43,800 viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic. Wallace scored just 401,000 total viewers during his show, which aired in the 7 p.m. ET hour.
In comparison, the former South Carolina Congressman hosted “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy” — and pulled in more than triple Wallace’s total viewers with over 1.3 million. He also nearly doubled Wallace’s number in the key demographic, racking up 78,000 viewers aged 25-54.
“Total Bomb!” @johnnydollar01 shared the news. “Chris Wallace’s CNN Show Premiere Tanks, Pulls Only 44k Viewers In Key Demo. The program was down double digits across every category vs the 2022 average. On Fox @TGowdySC scored a massive 1.3M viewers with 78k in the key 25-54 age demo …”
Total Bomb! Chris Wallace's CNN Show Premiere Tanks, Pulls Only 44k Viewers In Key Demo
The program was down double digits across every category vs the 2022 average. On Fox @TGowdySC scored a massive 1.3M viewers with 78k in the key 25-54 age demo…https://t.co/kjyha5fZPN— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) September 26, 2022
Critics were quick to pile on Wallace — who abruptly left “Fox News Sunday” in December of 2021 — suggesting that perhaps he was beginning to wish that he had stayed put.
“FoxNews made Chris Wallace, didn’t need him. Ratings don’t lie,” Mike Cernovich tweeted.
Wallace initially said when he left the network, he was just looking for a change.
“After 18 years, I have decided to leave FOX. I want to try something new, to go beyond politics, to all of the things I’m interested in,” he explained during his final “Fox News Sunday” broadcast. “I’m ready for a new adventure, and I hope you’ll check it out. And so, for the last time dear friends, that’s it for today.”
Wallace later claimed that he had found the situation at FOX — particularly in the wake of January 6th — to be “unsustainable.”
“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” Wallace said. “But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable. I spent a lot of 2021 looking to see if there was a different place for me to do my job,” he said.
Within days of leaving FOX, Wallace had announced his plan to move to CNN+ — but the streaming service launched, floundered, and folded in less than a month.