This late night talk show has non-WGA writers and is still on the air

Late-night TV talk shows blacked out because of the WGA writers’ strike — well, all but one. Fox News Channel’s “Gutfeld!” (the exclamation point is theirs) will remain on television. According to IndieWire, showrunner Greg Gutfeld has non-union writers. (Come on, wait a second, “Of course I do.”)

Some may not think of it as “Gutfeld!” to take a seat in the long-running stable of comedy shows, including CBS’ “The Late Show,” NBC’s “Tonight Show” and “Late Night,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” his show. (the exclamation point is also theirs), and Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.” (And up until last week, he was also on CBS’s “The Late Late Show.”) But like those guys, Gutfeld does topical comedy — he just leans the other way. (Officially, Gutfeld is a libertarian.)

Can it be compared to the main stable? Greg’s reviews. “Gutfeld!” It averaged 1.8 million viewers last month, the most of any late-night comedy talk show not hosted by Stephen Colbert, according to Nielsen. (Who, ironically, played a far-right character on Comedy Central who might not be all that different from Gutfeld and many other people at Fox News.)

It’s vital to note here that “Gutfeld,” like “The Daily Show,” airs at 11:00 p.m., which means they’re 35 minutes behind Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. Seth Meyers’ show starts at 12:35 p.m. Not only does Gutfeld have the advantage of having more potential viewers still awake, he also immediately follows Fox News Channel’s highly rated prime-time block. (No more Tucker Carlson at 8 now!) Colbert and the Jimmys come after half an hour of local news—not exactly an ideal introduction.

Speaking of Colbert, Fallon, Meyers and Kimmel, they all vowed to pay their staff out of their own pockets during the strike. Kimmel did the same during the most recent strike, as did then-hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.

Gutfeld is open to non-viewers last night’s program joked, he recently celebrated his seventh anniversary of seeing Kim Kardashian’s butt in person. “That thing was so big it looked back,” he joked.

This hilarity was an introduction to his first theme.” The mainstream media sucks,” which included some Joe Biden fart jokes. He then turned to mocking Hollywood on the eve of the writers’ strike, poking fun at Britney Griner and calling CBS News’ Gayle King a “lesbian.” Either there weren’t many laughs or Gutfeld’s audience microphones were on strike.

It might be time for the WGA writers, Greg.

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