15. Piers Morgan
It would take Piers Morgan a few years to read the tea leaves and realize that his multi-million, multi-year deal with Rupert Murdoch for content across platforms was having the most success in one particular arena: YouTube. Piers Morgan Uncensored, the British journalist’s raucous and popular show, started 2024 airing both on YouTube and Muroch’s TalkTV, a quixotic attempt to build a Fox News-style cable network in the UK.
At some point, Morgan realized YouTube – with its vast audience and his 3.5 million subscribers – was where the action was. So he ditched TalkTV and went full time on the video platform, and his influence has only grown. Morgan has emerged as one of the most talked about broadcasters in the world, whether he’s providing a side to international stories like Israel’s war in Gaza that don’t usually get airtime or letting guests rip each other’s throats out (rhetorically) arguing about the 2024 election.
His show has become a nightly showcase of off-the-rails clashes and fiery debates. Ever wondered what it might look like if Mehdi Hasan and Sarah Palin went at it? How about Cenk Uygur and Douglas Murray? Piers Morgan Uncensored has you covered. When Morgan isn’t acting as referee for a panel clash, he’s appearing on the air at Fox News and in the pages of the New York Post to offer blazing hot takes. What’s more, given his longtime relationship with Trump, Morgan is poised to thrive over the next four years at the center of the action.
14. Jake Tapper
For most people on the Most Influential list, moderating a presidential debate as Jake Tapper did this year might be their signature achievement in 2024. However, that is not the case with the host of CNN’s The Lead, who successfully promoted the cause of a wrongly imprisoned man.
C.J. Rice was convicted of shooting four people in 2011, and Tapper’s father just happened to be Rice’s longtime physician. Dr. Tapper testified at trial that his patient could not have committed the shooting and sprinted away from the scene as one witness claimed. Unfortunately, Rice’s overworked public defender was woefully unprepared for the case and, according to the CNN host, this “made my father’s testimony essentially a wash.” Rice was convicted, but Tapper and groups like the Pennsylvania Innocence Project did not give up. A federal court vacated his conviction and Rice was released.
When Tapper wasn’t helping the wrongfully convicted and moderating presidential debates, he was having a tense interview with JD Vance, asking the Speaker of the House why Trump seemed fixated on Arnold Palmer’s manhood, and pressing the prime minister of the U.K. on his interactions with Biden. Tapper has emerged as one of America’s preeminent anchors, and works harder than most to play it straight. Those on the right who denounce Tapper as yet another #Resistance anchor aren’t actually watching his show.
13. Jesse Watters
Every host would love to have one of the two highest-rated shows in all of cable news. Jesse Watters has them both. According to Nielsen data, The Five was the most-watched show on cable in 2024, and Jesse Watters Primetime was second. And throw in a No. 1 New York Times bestselling book to boot. All in all, not a bad year for the Fox News host. The two shows demonstrate his versatility. On Jesse Watters Primetime, the eponymous host pushes the envelope with hot takes. On The Five, he does battle with the likes of Jessica Tarlov and Harold Ford Jr. In both places, he exudes a bro-ish charm that makes him hard to dislike — even if you dislike what he’s saying. And while he doesn’t rely on big-ticket interviews for his success, he still lands plenty of them. Notably, he scored the first joint sitdown with Trump and Vance after the Ohio Senator was named to the ticket. He also landed an exclusive with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) right in the throes of controversy following her admission that she shot her dog. Since 1996, just three men have held down the 8 p.m. timeslot on Fox — arguably the single most-coveted piece of real estate in all of cable news. First it was Bill O’Reilly, then Tucker Carlson and now Jesse Watters. The first two are bona fide cable news legends. The third, at just 46 years old, is well on his way.
12. Rashida Jones and Mark Thompson
AP Photos
There is no dispute about it – the cable news industry faced serious headwinds this year. There are of course, the macro-trends (the slow collapse of the linear business) and the pitfalls inherent to running these large-scale news businesses. But the reality remains that CNN and MSNBC, and their top executives, still wield enormous power in the news world.
CNN chief Mark Thompson has been working behind the scenes to develop a digital plan that insiders hope will save the iconic news brand as it faces declining ratings. Publicly, he’s already made bold moves, including introducing a paywall for CNN’s digital operation. Unlike others in the industry, Sir Thompson has earned the benefit of the doubt (his resume includes, among other triumphs, turning The New York Times into a digital subscription behemoth, a feat one hopes he can pull off again). And he’s taken a much more deft approach to implementing a paywall than the Quibi-esque disaster that was CNN+. If anyone can chart a new, successful path for CNN, it’s probably Thompson.
At MSNBC, meanwhile, Jones has grown the linear product to new heights. In 2024, the network regularly surpassed CNN in the ratings. Most promising is that the network triumphed during major news events that have historically been CNN’s for the taking, including Election Night. Jones has led MSNBC for four years now, and while there’s speculation she is eyeing an exit, many in the newsroom are hoping she stays to help guide the network through an uncertain Trump era.
This may have been the podcast election, but that label belies the still-massive influence of cable news, which remains the dominant platform for disseminating new information to the world. CNN and MSNBC may be going through a ratings slump in the wake of Trump’s election, but when his second term gets underway America will no doubt once again turn to these networks for reporting and commentary on the wobbly new world.
11. Greg Gutfeld
Greg Gutfeld has something of a cheat code when it comes to maintaining a large audience: not only is he co-host of the most-watched show in all of cable news, The Five, but he also mans Gutfeld!, a Fox-y comedy program that regularly blows the audience of traditional late night shows out of the water. That double-duty means Gutfeld is one of – if not the – most watched person in all of news. It’s no small feat for a comic who went from editing lad mags in the U.K. to toiling for years on Red Eye, the network’s erstwhile 3 a.m. comedy show.
His influence (as well as his unwavering devotion to Trump) is what earned Gutfeld a major interview with the Republican candidate in September that drew big numbers. It’s not just that a lot of people are watching, it’s also who is watching: Fox News boasts that Gutfeld! attracted more Democratic and Independent viewers in the third quarter than any of his late-night competitors. It’s one thing to preach to the choir; it’s another entirely to have millions from across the political spectrum tuning into your jokes as much as your serious political commentary.
10. Megyn Kelly
AP Photo/Matt Freed
After a career in TV news, Megyn Kelly has amassed a highly engaged audience on YouTube, where she boasts more than 3 million subscribers, with the backing of a prime slot on SiriusXM. She has shown an uncanny ability to identify the culture war subjects that rile up her obsessive audience – in many cases bringing issues not front of mind for the majority of Americans into the mainstream.
When Megyn talks, or in many cases attacks, people listen, a quality that gives her more reach than almost any cable news host. That explains why just about every major political or cultural figure on the right makes sure to stop by her show. Kelly’s also not afraid to throw down with those who disagree with her, making her one of the rare partisan media figures willing to occasionally veer out of the bubble.
2024 was also the year she gave up her claim to being an independent journalist and came out as a MAGA activist. She campaigned on behalf of Trump at a rally in Pittsburgh days before the election and donned the iconic red hat on Halloween (as well as a trash bag: her costume was a nod to Biden’s garbled declaration that some Trump supporters are “garbage.”) “He will be a protector of women and it’s why I’m voting for him,” Kelly said in Pittsburgh, of the man who once infamously accused her of being mean to him at a debate because she was on her period.
With a career that has taken a winding road through the mainstream media, from a wildly successful Fox News program to a less successful NBC talk show, Kelly has undoubtedly found her path. It may be, with rare exceptions, the MAGA lane – but that’s a powerful and lucrative lane to be in.
9. Bill Maher
Decades after he first appeared on television with regular hits on Johnny Carson, Bill Maher is perhaps more influential than ever. Week in and week out, Maher’s HBO show Real Time delivers the kind of substantive clash missing from most political talk shows and the kind of humor missing from other late night programs. Tune in to Stephen Colbert or Greg Gutfeld and you can expect to hear the same jokes directed at the same targets night after night. By contrast, you never know whether Maher is going to be dressing down a Republican over slavish devotion to Trump or a Democrat over progressive excesses. He’s often quoted or cited by partisan media on both sides and a seat at his table is the hottest Friday night ticket for heavy-hitters in the media industry and leaders no matter the party.
With plenty of preposterous material to work with, it’s no surprise that CNN has taken to running encore presentations of his show – now in its 22nd season – a day after it airs on HBO. It’s also no wonder his 2024 book, What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, vaulted to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Like many of the names on this list, Maher was savvy enough to venture into independent media, and spent 2024 growing his Club Random interview series into a hit YouTube show with more than 600,000 subscribers who tune in to watch Maher shoot the shit with everyone from Jane Fonda to Bill Burr.
8. Bret Baier
Given his standing as the lead anchor of Fox News’ election coverage, 2024 was always going to be a banner year for Bret Baier. But his Oct. 16 showdown with Harris — undoubtedly on the shortlist for most-anticipated and most consequential interview of the entire campaign — took Baier’s 2024 to stratospheric heights. Harris had all but avoided confrontational interviews up until that point. But with the race getting away from her, she rolled the dice by granting one of the most skilled interrogators in the business a 30-minute exclusive. And the big gamble came up snake eyes for the VP — as Baier clearly rattled her with tough questions on a variety of subjects.
Yes, Baier — by his own admission — did play an out-of- context soundbite during one key exchange. But that error did little to take away from an enormous night for the Fox News anchor — who, in hindsight, may have helped put the nail in the coffin of Harris’s doomed campaign.
Of course, Baier’s 2024 success extended far beyond that one exclusive. He served as co-anchor for the most-watched Election Night coverage in all of television. He also traveled to Ukraine to conduct the very first interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the frontlines of combat (an interview that served as an unspoken and authoritative rebuttal to Tucker Carlson’s fawning sitdown with Vladimir Putin days earlier). And he was even recognized outside the industry by earning induction into the prestigious Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. Baier has massive ratings but also respect from both sides of the aisle. His clout allowed him to score major interviews with top figures of both parties, and to earn the respect of his peers across the industry. There are very few in all of media who have it all. Baier does.
7. Matt Drudge
AP Photo/Michael Caulfield
In an age of drastic change for the media industry, one website remains a constant: The Drudge Report, the frantic amalgamation of links with many millions of daily readers that’s been virtually unchanged since it exploded onto the scene in the late 1990s. Those readers arrive the old fashioned way – by typing in the URL and sitting on the homepage, refreshing and clicking on fresh links, all in Courier font, sometimes italicized, sometimes firetruck red to denote a truly explosive story.
It’s a testament to the mighty power of Matt Drudge, the report’s elusive proprietor, that in an era of vertical short-form video his old-school site still draws the massive audience of influencers and obsessives that it does. To put it in eye-popping numbers: the site boasts 7 billion visits in the last year.
Drudge began his career with major scoops, most notably breaking Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal. He later joined forces with Andrew Breitbart and became one of the major players in the conservative media universe, often being the first source for major stories and culture war crusades. While Drudge has always been known for his eyeball-grabbing headlines, his political bent shifted noticeably during the Trump years. Once a reliable supporter of GOP politics, Drudge is now often a Trump critic. While he continues to highlight liberal hypocrisies and excesses, during the election, he brutally satirized Trump and acolytes like Elon Musk with AI-generated images and scathing headlines. Nevertheless, his audience remains right-leaning, giving him a rare platform to speak to those distrustful of mainstream news coverage.
Bottom line, Drudge will remain a dominant player – and potentially painful thorn in Trump’s side – for the next four years.
6. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski
Leading up to the 2024 election, no cable news show was tracked as closely as Morning Joe by the people who matter. For those seeking guidance through the most chaotic campaign for Democrats in modern American history, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s breakfast program was a North Star.
That influence continued after election day. Eyeballs were fixed at 6 a.m. on Nov. 18 when Scarborough and Brzezinski told their audience that, three days earlier, they visited Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The revelation hit like a percussion bomb. Critics on the left and the right were furious. Liberals accused them of bending the knee out of fear. Conservatives accused them of hypocrisy after years of relentless attacks.
But the apoplectic reaction across the political spectrum to the Mar-a-Lago summit proved just how important Joe and Mika are. Observers of all stripes know that — more than anyone else in cable news — the MSNBC morning hosts set the tone for the power players in DC and left leaning viewers across the country. Every Monday-Friday at 6 a.m., viewers turn to Morning Joe to find out the inside the beltway agenda for the day. It’s the most-watched show on cable during that all-important first hour, and the most-watched show in its timeslot in the powerful New York and Washington markets. And what a hefty timeslot it is. No other hosts on cable news are given four hours a day. Many of even the most powerful in the industry are limited to almost that many hours in a week.
And that’s because viewers in the Big Apple and the Beltway know just how much clout the show and its hosts have on both sides of the aisle. Biden is reported to tune in daily. And for all his protestations, Trump is well-known to keep close tabs on the show too.
Biden made it a point to call into Morning Joe right after his disastrous presidential debate to try and rescue his campaign. And Nancy Pelosi made it a point to visit the show, days later, to let him know he failed. The show was instrumental both in pushing out Biden, and coronating Harris.
And as for the infamous Mar-a-Lago visit — yes, no other MSNBC host would have made that trek down to South Florida. But let’s face it, no other MSNBC host could. Only Joe and Mika have the influence to get that kind of audience with the president-elect.
They are now clearly the biggest stars on their network. And in 2024, they were among the biggest stars in all of media.