Report: Rotating hosts to fill Shepard Smith’s Fox News time slot until permanent anchor chosen

Make sure to let us know what you think... we now have comments turned ON below the article!

The cable news world was stunned on Friday by the unexpected resignation of longtime midday Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, and speculation immediately ran wild with regard to why he left as well as who would be selected to replace him in the 3 p.m. time slot.

According to a top executive at Fox News, several of the network’s prominent news anchors will take turns filling in for Smith in that time slot until a revamped news program with a new permanent anchor is launched in early 2020.

Rotating fill-in hosts for now

That revelation came from Jay Wallace, president and executive editor of Fox News Media, in an interview with Variety on Monday. The main takeaway from Wallace’s remarks was that the 3 p.m. time slot will remain a straight news program and will not be transformed into an opinion program.

Some of the names mentioned by Wallace as fill-in hosts for the spot vacated by Smith included such prominent anchors, hosts, and reporters as Bret Baier, Shannon Bream, Bill Hemmer, Brit Hume, Martha MacCallum, John Roberts and Chris Wallace, perhaps among others.

Correspondent Trace Gallagher will be the first to anchor the program before the others perform a stint on a rotating basis. A new, stand-alone, news-focused program will be launched in that time slot next year with a yet-to-be named permanent host.

“This is going to remain a solid news hour, with our best news stars,” Wallace told Variety. “Journalism is a huge part of the mandate here.”

Wallace further revealed that while Fox personalities would certainly be considered for the role of Smith’s permanent replacement, the network remains open to the possibility of somebody new from outside of the network being chosen, and said, “We aren’t rushing into it.” He added that using the rotating lineup of fill-in anchors would allow the network to “figure out what works well for us” as well as “what works for these times.”

“Familial bonds” at Fox

“It was a tough day for a lot of people here,” Wallace, who was once a producer of Smith’s program, said of his unexpected departure. “The thing about this place, there is a camaraderie, a ‘us against the world’ mentality.” He continued, “These are more like familial bonds as opposed to just passing, transactional relationships. That’s why it hit so hard with a lot of people.”

With regard to speculation that recent on-air sniping between Smith and the primetime opinion hosts, particularly Tucker Carlson, Wallace reiterated that network policy was and remains that internal spats are meant to be kept off-air and dealt with behind the scenes.

“Emotions can run high, and they do at times, so they do,” Wallace said. “Our guidance has always been to deal with this — if you have a problem with someone, pick up the phone. These are sharp people. Why do you want to parade this in front of everyone? Our audience doesn’t want to see it.”

Continual evolution

Wallace also discussed some of the other big things in the works at Fox News, such as hiring more reporters and giving them more room to roam and find stories on their own.

He also highlighted a desired shift toward covering more of Washington than just Congress and the White House, upgrading the D.C. studio and expanding the on-air and digital platforms of Fox News, Fox Business and Fox Nation in an effort to retain the network’s position at the very top of the cable news industry.

569 Responses

  1. I’ll immediately clutch your rss feed as I can’t in finding your e-mail subscription link or newsletter service. Do you have any? Please allow me recognize in order that I could subscribe. Thanks.

  2. Get help to stop drinking. Helping women quit drinking alcohol. Coach Mary Wagstaff. Feel better, mind, body and soul. Mindfulness based coaching and alcohol recovery. Yoga for recovery.

  3. I really love your website.. Pleasant colors & theme. Did you create this amazing site yourself? Please reply back as I’m wanting to create my own personal blog and would like to know where you got this from or just what the theme is called. Appreciate it!

  4. Appreciating the hard work you put into your website and detailed information you present. It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same old rehashed information. Wonderful read! I’ve bookmarked your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.

  5. I simply couldn’t depart your website before suggesting that I actually enjoyed the usual info a person provide to your visitors? Is going to be again regularly to check out new posts.

  6. An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who has been doing a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me dinner due to the fact that I discovered it for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending some time to discuss this subject here on your internet site.

  7. Hello! I’m at work browsing your blog from my new apple iphone! Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look forward to all your posts! Carry on the excellent work!

  8. I’ve been browsing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.

  9. I together with my pals were looking at the excellent solutions from the blog and immediately got a horrible feeling I never thanked the website owner for those secrets. Most of the people ended up consequently glad to read them and have now pretty much been enjoying those things. Appreciation for getting quite kind and then for picking out such awesome areas most people are really desirous to know about. Our own honest regret for not expressing gratitude to you earlier.

  10. Awesome blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A theme like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make my blog stand out. Please let me know where you got your design. Bless you

  11. Hmm it seems like your website ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I submitted and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any tips and hints for newbie blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate it.

  12. The next time I read a blog, Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read through, however I really believed you’d have something useful to say. All I hear is a bunch of complaining about something that you could possibly fix if you weren’t too busy seeking attention.

  13. Hi! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I really enjoy reading through your posts. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects? Thanks a lot!

  14. Hi, I do believe this is an excellent website. I stumbledupon it 😉 I am going to return once again since I saved as a favorite it. Money and freedom is the greatest way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Popular