Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer's new show on the channel, "Bill Hemmer Reports," is off to a strong start after he was tapped to replace former anchor Shepard Smith for the 3:00 p.m. hour. The show's first episode premiered on Monday.
In addition to beating out CNN and MSNBC for the same hour, Hemmer's new show had double digit increases from the 2019 average when Smith hosted. "Bill Hemmer Reports" had 1.8 million total viewers, netting 269,000 viewers in the 25-54 age demographic.
"CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin" received 867,000 total viewers and "MSNBC Live With Ali Velshi" received around 1 million total viewers.
The inaugural episode beat out his predecessor's program with a 49 percent increase in total viewership and a 12 percent increase for the 25-54 age demographic when compared to the same day last year. The show also beat CNN’s primetime programming from 8-11PM/ET (916,000 P2+; 226,000 A25-54) despite lower levels of households using television.
Smith left Fox News in October after 23 years with the network.
“I am very happy to start this next chapter with you at home," Hemmer told Fox News viewers. "We won’t solve the world’s issues in an hour, but over time we will understand them better. I call it the whole picture. We’ll be fast and we’ll try to be first, but we will focus on being fair. In the end, the whole picture takes time, but over time we hope to see you around here more often and that’s our word."
The first episode featured interviews with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s campaign manager Kevin Sheekey.