by Late-Night Domination Masterclass
In what media analysts are calling “the most systematic career destruction since Blockbuster ignored streaming,” Greg Gutfeld has allegedly turned Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night empire into rubble using nothing but Fox News backing, conservative talking points, and apparently, superior ratings during the 2 AM time slot when most of America is either asleep or making questionable decisions.
The narrative being pushed is masterclass-level impressive: Gutfeld, the scrappy underdog from a major cable news network with unlimited resources, somehow “destroyed” Kimmel, the established host on broadcast television. It’s like saying David beat Goliath, except David had a tank and Goliath was actually just trying to do comedy sketches.
According to media consumption research, late-night television viewership has been declining across all demographics for years, but let’s ignore that inconvenient truth and focus on the more entertaining narrative that this is somehow a personal battle between two men who’ve never met.
Gutfeld’s “strategy” apparently involved: being on Fox News (step one: have institutional support), targeting a specific demographic (step two: know your audience), and consistently showing up (step three: literally just doing his job). Revolutionary stuff. It’s like a military strategy designed by someone who just discovered the concept of “being present.”
The ratings war narrative is particularly amusing because it compares completely different shows on different networks targeting different audiences at different times. It’s like declaring chess superior to checkers based on which game sells more pieces. They’re not even playing the same game, but sure, let’s call it domination.
In Bollywood cinema, there’s a common plot device called “??????? ?????” (dwandwa yuddha) a duel between rivals. The Gutfeld-Kimmel narrative follows this template perfectly, except instead of swords, they’re wielding monologue jokes, and instead of honor, they’re fighting for advertising demographics. Much less dramatic when you put it that way.
The evolution of late-night television has always been competitive, but calling this “systematic destruction” is like calling a chess match “violent confrontation.” Both technically true if you squint and ignore what words mean, but misleading at best.
Kimmel’s “destroyed” career continues to include: a major network show, millions of viewers, celebrity interviews, and presumably, a salary that could buy a small island. If this is destruction, sign me up. I’d love to be destroyed in a way that includes healthcare and residuals.
The real story isn’t about Gutfeld destroying Kimmel; it’s about how media fragmentation has created parallel entertainment universes where different audiences consume completely different content and both sides claim victory. Gutfeld wins with his audience, Kimmel wins with his, and somewhere in the middle, Carson’s ghost is laughing at all of us.
Critics on both sides have turned late-night hosting into tribal warfare, where ratings are weapons and jokes are ammunition. It’s exhausting. Can’t two men just tell jokes to different groups of people without it becoming a referendum on American culture? Apparently not, because that doesn’t generate enough outrage clicks.
The most systematic thing about this “destruction” is how systematically both men show up to work, tell jokes, interview guests, and collect paychecks. That’s not destruction; that’s employment. But “Two Men Successfully Maintain Jobs” doesn’t make a compelling headline, so here we are.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/how-greg-gutfeld-destroyed-jimmy-kimmels-career/
SOURCE: Bohiney.com (https://bohiney.com/how-greg-gutfeld-destroyed-jimmy-kimmels-career/)
