Mediaite’s Ranking of Best Cable News Show at 4 P.M.: Jake Tapper, Neil Cavuto, Nicolle Wallace

Mediaite StaffSep 14th, 2018, 3:06 pm
 

Welcome back to Mediaite’s weekly rankings of the best shows on cable news, hour-by-hour. Last week, we gave the top spot at 3 p.m. to Shepard Smith‘s Fox News show, Shepard Smith Reporting.

This Friday, we take on the 4 p.m. hour, stacked with two cable news heavyweights and one newcomer who has made a serious name for herself. Jake Tapper, Neil Cavuto and Nicolle Wallace go head to head this week. All three of these anchors have worthwhile shows that break news and spawn Mediaite headlines, so this was a competitive week.

A reminder: We’re basing our rankings on a variety of factors, including; ratings, influence, entertainment value, the star power of hosts, the quality of guests, whether the show makes news, and its longevity.

With that said, let’s dive into our ranking for the Best Shows on Cable News in the 4 p.m. hour:

3. Your World With Neil Cavuto — Hosted by Neil Cavuto

Neil Cavuto has staying power. He joined Fox News at its inception in 1996, and has since accumulated a series of lofty titles — and hosting gigs — at the network. Aside from his first show, Your World with Neil Cavuto, hosted since 1996, he also mans Cavuto Live and Cavuto: Coast to Coast on sister network Fox Business.

His seniority at the network lends weight to his commentary. Since many at Fox News took a rightward turn in the fight or flight era of Donald Trump, Cavuto has maintained a cerebral calm — striking given his show leads into The Five, cable’s rowdiest daytime slugfest. He hasn’t hesitated to call bullshit on the president, however. Cavuto’s persistent criticism of Trump following the disastrous Helsinki summit with Putin was searing. His ensuing segments reading out hate-mail from offended Trump supporters were just as delightful a spectacle to watch.

These flashes of great television aside, Cavuto’s show can be slow. It’s perhaps a welcome pace amidst the madness of the 24 hour news cycle, but Your World could benefit from a little more flair.

2. Deadline: White House — Hosted by Nicolle Wallace

MSNBC has taken heat from its progressive viewers for ditching the Lean Forward days in favor of an experiment with balanced centrism. That experiment failed in some respects (farewell Greta Van Susteren, Hugh Hewitt), but in the case of Nicolle Wallace, it seems to have paid off.

She’s certainly not your stock standard MSNBC host: a longtime Republican, Wallace worked as communications chief for George W. Bush. Wallace is a ferocious critic of Trump from the right, and her five-alarm-fire style coverage of the administration sometimes does border on hysterical — with her notably stepping over the line by suggesting she wanted to wring the neck of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But strident anti-Trump rhetoric helps explain why MSNBC’s liberal audience will abide by a former Bush staffer in the anchor’s seat. What’s more, placing her show at 4 p.m. — just after Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ truth-challenged press briefings — was a stroke of programming genius from MSNBC.

Wallace maintains her connections to Republican circles, meaning she’s one of the best sourced anchors on her progressive network. But not only is Wallace sharp, witty and plugged in, she can also juggle a panel. Hers is often stocked with conservatives of the Bush-McCain era variety (think Steve Schmidt and John Podhoretz) that consistently provide fireworks.

With that, it’s no wonder her nascent show has led to a surge in MSNBC’s ratings at 4 p.m.

If there’s a knock on Wallace, it’s that she’s not a traditional broadcaster, and doesn’t have the same level of polish as her timeslot competitors. The first-time host is picking up quite a lot on the fly, but still has a bit more to learn.

But the positives far outweigh the negatives on Deadline: White House. This is a strong broadcast.

1. The Lead — Hosted by Jake Tapper

Jake Tapper is a titan at 4 p.m. His daily show The Lead blasts the competition out of the water as the consistently best, most relevant and newsworthy show in the hour. The seasoned anchor imports the heft of manning State of the Union, CNN’s flagship Sunday show, but his weekday program — with solid commentary and actual reporting — packs a punch too.

On big news days, his opening monologue is a must-watch — whether he’s fact-checking the president on dubious claims about post-disaster death tolls or Rudy Giuliani‘s latest “Orwellian truth flub.” His interviews with Trump administration officials (his always tense showdowns with Kellyanne Conway come to mind) cut through the spin and consistently make news. Not because such guests wish to say anything newsworthy, but because he deftly draws it out of them.

Not just that, but his producers manage to stock The Lead‘s panels with a solid rotation of guests that provide good fodder for explosive Mediaite stories — always a factor in these rankings. Thankfully, theatrics from Ana Navarro and David Urban are well-balanced by more thoughtful takes from the likes of Mary Katharine Ham, Jackie Kucinich, and of course, the no-nonsense Tapper himself.

It’s an easy choice: Jake Tapper’s The Lead is the best cable news show at 4 p.m.

Those are our rankings, but we want to hear your thoughts, dear reader! Vote in our Twitter poll here:

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