Long-time veteran news anchor Shepard Smith returns to television Wednesday after abruptly quitting his Fox News gig last year. Smith’s new show will air on CNBC at 7:00 p.m.
“We’re going to come out and do just the news,” Smith told the Associated Press. “We’re not planning to do any analysis in our news hour. We are going to have journalists, reporters, sound and video. We’re going to have newsmakers and experts … but no pundits.”
Smith left Fox after clashing with one of the network’s biggest stars, Tucker Carlson.
“I built a career at Fox News and I have some deep friendships, ones that I’m going to keep forever,” Smith said. “But simply, I just felt it was the right time to leave. I asked them if I could and they eventually allowed me to do that.”
Smith is trading top-rated cable news outlet Fox for a network that is struggling to get its share of the viewership pie.
According to Nielsen, Fox News Channel is averaging 2.7 million viewers in the 7 p.m. time slot this year. MSNBC has 1.7 million and CNN has 1.5 million.
“There’s no muscle memory at CNBC in terms of doing a general newscast. We are creating all of that. And that is fun. It was fun creating in 1996, and it’s fun creating in 2020.”
The 56-year-old Smith originally joined Fox News in 1996. In 2013, the network moved him from the 7:00 p.m. time slot to 3:00 p.m. where he enjoyed tremendous success anchoring news for nearly seven years.
“It’s not an easy thing to start from scratch,” Smith said.
