Chris Wallace, a former Fox News anchor who tested the waters by leaving for rival CNN in January of 2022, has announced he is departing the network.
The news comes less than one week after Donald Trump won reelection, a night which saw Wallace fret that the landslide victory and potential control of both Houses of Congress might lead to him having “unchecked power.”
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Perhaps he was worried about those journo gulags the liberal media has been warning about. Anyway, we kid because we care, Chris.
Wallace told the Daily Beast that he was leaving at the end of his three-year contract because of his interest in streaming and/or podcasting, suggesting that’s “where the action seems to be.”
He noted the success of podcasters Joe Rogan and Charlamagne tha God as reason for trying a new path forward but was sure to quantify, stating, “I don’t flatter myself to think I will have that sort of reach.”
Nor should he.
77-year-old Chris Wallace will quit CNN and walk away from a seven-figure salary rather than renegotiate his contract. His plan is to go into independent streaming or podcasting, pointing to Joe Rogan and Charlamagne tha God’s reach as inspiration.
Legacy news outlets are losing… pic.twitter.com/W8osi6V1q1
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 12, 2024
Chris Wallace’s decision to step away comes as election night ratings across all major legacy media outlets dropped precipitously. A shocking realization considering the unprecedented interest in whether or not a low-IQ cat lady could somehow stop the ascension of basically Hitler.
Fox News topped the ratings on election night with 9.8 million prime-time viewers, followed by MSNBC at 5.5 million viewers, while CNN brought up the rear, reeling in just 4.7 million sets of eyes.
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Those numbers were all massive declines — Fox was down 31 percent, MSNBC down 29 percent, and CNN nearly 50 percent. It’s almost as if both sides of the political aisle no longer trust these mainstream purveyors of misinformation. They’d rather go elsewhere for facts and knowledge.
As X CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly said on his social media platform, “You are the media now.”
Chris Wallace greatly overestimates the public interest in what he has to say. The old media dynamic was that you could choose between a few news channels. The new media allows you to choose who you find interesting. He’s gonna find out the hard way that it’s not Chris Wallace. https://t.co/bczAojy44c
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 12, 2024
The Chris Wallace experiment at CNN was an utter disaster by any measure. Some of you clicked on the headline of this story, thinking, “I didn’t even know he was still working.”
But alas, he is. Wallace was hired to be the face of the network. They were banking on his undeserved reputation of impartiality which was abandoned when he moderated a 2020 presidential debate where he ran interference for Joe Biden, even presenting the Charlottesville hoax as fact in one of his questions.
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Upon his hiring, CNN described Wallace as “one of the few high-profile news personalities who retained a reputation of integrity as Fox leaned hard into right-wing and conspiratorial programming.”
Which is rich coming from a network that leans heavily into left-wing conspiratorial programming.
The Emmy Award-winning anchor was set to be the face of CNN’s streaming service, CNN+, and he ended up hosting two separate weekend programs — “Who’s Talking with Chris Wallace?” and “The Chris Wallace Show.”
The better question would have been, “Who’s Even Watching Chris Wallace?” Both shows received poor viewership, with the latter even at times struggling to beat Newsmax in the ratings.
Just Wow!! 🎉 Fantastic @NEWSMAX TV prime time ratings beats @CNN! Congrats @ericbolling @ChrisPlanteShow & @gregkellyusa & thanks @greta for reporting on this! 📺 pic.twitter.com/8VJ7PsEyke
— Deneen Borelli (@deneenborelli) May 15, 2023
As for that streaming service he was meant to be the face of?
CNN+ suffered an embarrassing run, as the network announced it would be shuttered less than one month after its debut. Just weeks into its launch, Wallace was said to be suffering from “daily breakdowns.”
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Wallace, who reportedly was lured away from Fox News with a $9 million annual contract, put on a brave face after CNN+ crashed and burned, claiming he had no regrets because he was “going to be fine.”
“I’m in good shape whether it’s CNN or someplace else,” he said.
Now, Trump’s win and election night coverage, in general, seems to have put the final nail in the coffin and sent him scurrying someplace else.
He told the Daily Beast that his departure is “quite liberating.”
“This is the first time in 55 years I‘ve been between jobs,” he told the outlet. “I am actually excited and liberated by that.”
Your viewers — all six of them — will be feeling the same way.
