The Five

On a July afternoon in 2011, five Fox News personalities sat around a circular desk in a New York studio and started talking. No one expected the summer replacement show to last. Thirteen years and more than 3,000 episodes later, The Five has become the highest-rated program in cable news, averaging 3 to 4 million viewers per episode.

The formula is simple: four conservative voices and one liberal voice debate the day's political stories, cultural flashpoints, and breaking news. The rotating liberal seat, held over the years by Juan Williams, Bob Beckel, and currently Jessica Tarlov, provides the ideological friction that drives the conversation. Regulars Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, and Jesse Watters have been there since the beginning, their chemistry turning policy arguments into something closer to a family dinner argument, complete with interruptions, jokes, and the occasional genuine surprise.

The show's signature closing segment, One More Thing, lets each host share a personal story or offbeat observation, often generating viral moments that spread far beyond Fox News' audience. That blend of partisan debate and humanizing banter has made The Five a template that other networks have tried, and largely failed, to replicate. [edit]

Five commentators sit around a circular desk. That is the entire premise of The Five, a daily talk show that has dominated cable news ratings since its 2011 debut. The show airs live weekdays at 5 p.m. Eastern from Fox News' New York studios, where the panel tackles the biggest political stories of the moment, presidential elections, Supreme Court nominations, congressional hearings, international conflicts, and cultural controversies.

The core cast has remained remarkably stable. Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, and Jesse Watters have been co-hosts since episode one. Gutfeld brings a comedian's timing and libertarian edge. Perino, a former White House press secretary, offers institutional knowledge and a calm counterpoint. Watters, who started as a producer on The O'Reilly Factor, leans into populist provocations. The fourth and fifth seats have rotated more often. Kimberly Guilfoyle stayed for nearly a decade before leaving in 2020. Bob Beckel, the original liberal voice, departed in 2015. Jessica Tarlov joined as a permanent liberal co-host in 2023, and former congressman Harold Ford Jr. became a regular in 2024.

Each episode follows a loose structure: opening monologues from the hosts, a roundtable discussion of two or three major stories, occasional guest interviews, and the signature One More Thing segment where each host shares a short personal anecdote or humorous observation. The show does not follow a seasonal narrative arc like a scripted series. Instead, its seasons track the real-world news cycle. Early seasons covered the Obama administration's second term, the 2016 election, and the rise of the Trump movement. Later seasons focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 election aftermath, the Biden presidency, and the 2024 campaign. Major recurring themes include immigration, the economy, crime, and media bias.

The tension between the conservative hosts and the liberal guest is the engine of the show. That dynamic has changed over time. Early episodes featured sharper ideological divides, with Beckel and Williams often clashing with the conservative panel. Under Tarlov, the debates have become more structured, though still heated. The show's producers deliberately avoid a rigid format, letting conversations veer off topic when chemistry sparks. That unpredictability, the sense that anything could happen, has kept viewers coming back for over a decade.[edit]