Sean Hannity: Last News

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News Media, known best for shows led by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, is placing new emphasis on programming that relies more heavily on Kevin Costner, weather emergencies and Greg Gutfeld. In a meeting with advertisers slated to be held Tuesday, executives at the Fox Corp.-backed operation, will spotlight a growing array of lifestyle content, while continuing to nod to the political programming that draws some of its networks’ biggest audiences. Among the Fox News Media executives scheduled to be on hand were Suzanne Scott, the CEO, and Jay Wallace, president and executive editor. “If you take a look at our overall audience across all of Fox News Media, 40% comes from lifestyle – sports, weather, entertainment offerings,” says Jeff Collins, executive vice president of advertsing sales for Fox News Media. “We just want to reiterate to our clients the depth and breadth of this type of content that we have outside of just hard news.”

It looked like a good week for Fox News on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver today as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and uncertainty in the financial world replaced the searing revelations resulting from Dominion Voting’s lawsuit against the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable newser on the HBO series.

Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities, according to a new survey.  But only 9% of Fox News viewers say they aren’t watching the network as much as they used to, per research provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group. (Click to an expanded subscriber version for full results.) A representative for Fox News told VIP+, “There has been no impact to advertising, with no advertisers dropping or pausing.” 

John Oliver is having fun with Fox News and its lawsuit with Dominion Voting, again.

If Chelsea Handler had to take a guess as to who would survive for the GOP Presential ticket, it would be Florida governor Ron DeSantis over former President Donald Trump.

A huge release of text messages, emails and deposition transcripts dropped today in the Dominion vs. Fox litigation sheds further light on the scramble among Fox News personalities and Fox Corp. executives to respond to the backlash in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and then the repercussions after the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

Saturday Night Live went with the week’s biggest media stories for its cold open: the revelations from Dominion Voting Systems bombshell filing in its defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Watch a clip below.

“If it’s Biden against Trump, Biden will win – that’s a good bet,” Bill Maher predicted to Jake Tapper tonight on CNN of a potential 2024 showdown between the 2020 rivals.  

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox Corp. sought to tamp down furor around a series of implicating quotes and texts culled from corporate executives and Fox News anchors, in the newest filing, part of a closely watched defamation lawsuit from voting-technology firm Dominion Voting Systems. Fox Corp. and Fox News Channel made the case in two filings in the Superior Court in Delaware that many of the colorful utterances from Fox News stars such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and even some from Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch were beyond the scope of Dominion’s case, and urged the court to reject the company’s call for a summary judgement, or a ruling in Dominon’s favor that would negate the need for a trial. Dominion is suing Fox for $1.6 billion in damages it alleges it is owed after Fox News made false claims about the Dominion’s actions and influence on the 2020 election. It is the second legal proceeding made against Fox News for its coverage of the aftermath of the 2020 race for the White House. Smartmatic, a voting technology company, has filed a massive $2.7 billion suit against Fox News. At issue in the suits, are allegations that Fox News falsely claimed the companies had rigged the election, repeated items about the matter and refused to engage in efforts to set the record straight. The 2020 election was not fixed and its results were certified by multiple legal processes.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN hopes it’s finally hit upon a way to solve a long-vexing puzzle: What should it be airing at 9 p.m.? The solution requires the network to fit together many pieces. Starting this week, the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed news outlet will fill the hour with a range of different special reports, all under the rubric of “CNN Primetime.” Future 9 p.m. hours could include one-on-one interviews with newsmakers; town halls that put government officials in direct contact with the people affected by policy decisions; and other programs that feature surprising “gets” and scoops. The programming gambit backs away from the tried-and-true practice of relying on a single anchor or opinion host in the time slot, home to Sean Hannity, Alex Wagner and Rachel Maddow, and banks instead on creative ways of analyzing the news cycle.

John Oliver returned with Last Week Tonight after a three-month hiatus and it wasn’t long before he started taking swipes at Fox News.

Sean Penn and a gonzo documentary camera crew found themselves on the frontlines of war as they waited to see if they could interview Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Not only did he land that interview, but he continued to travel back to Ukraine to chronicle the horrors of war a total of six times for “Superpower,” a documentary Penn co-directed that premiered to a standing ovation at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday. In the nearly two-hour-long film, produced by Vice, Penn underlines America’s shortcomings in supporting Ukraine in the war. Zelenskyy, who grows increasingly comfortable around the Oscar-winning actor in a series of interviews, reveals his frustrations at the lack of support in the form of high-impact weapons received from the Biden administration.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Dominion Voting Systems alleges that emails, depositions and text messages among Fox News executives and its top stars show that the network had a clear financial motive to lie to its audience about voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. In a summary judgement motion filed Thursday, the company argued that Fox anchors feared losing viewers to rival Newsmax if they did not perpetuate the fantasy that the election was stolen from President Trump. “The network is being rejected,” wrote Sean Hannity, in a text message to Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. In another text thread, Hannity wrote: “Respecting this audience whether we agree or not is critical.”

Fox News hosts and executives, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, did not believe Donald Trump’s election fraud claims in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, but the network nevertheless amplified the conspiracy theories as it worried about losing viewers to Newsmax, according to filings from Dominion Voting Systems made public on Thursday.

Rupert Murdoch is scheduled to be deposed today and Friday in Dominion Voting Systems’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News over its amplification of claims that the company was involved in rigging the 2020 presidential election.

News networks again will center their attention on the unfolding drama on Capitol Hill, where Kevin McCarthy and his allies are trying to sway 20 dug-in detractors.

Networks covered Donald Trump’s presidential announcement, but the once-loyal New York Post brushed it off.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman who recently announced that she has left the Democratic party, is joining Fox News as a paid contributor.

As time passes, Americans are becoming less outwardly appreciative of blue-collar and gray-collar jobs, such as those in the trades, agriculture and elsewhere, "How America Works" host Mike Rowe said Friday, ahead of the new season of his Fox Business program. On "Hannity," host Sean Hannity cited his early work in restaurants and labor-centric jobs, saying many Americans don't fully understand anymore what it takes to manufacture something or farm to a capacity that feeds the nation and world.

Outkick founder Clay Travis echoed calls from Fox News' Sean Hannity for Pennsylvania Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman to take the conservative host up on his offer to appear on up to three hours of radio and an hour of television.