TV Guide’s Stephen Battaglio talked with FNC’s Shepard Smith about his primetime show’s new look and feel. Battaglio writes a “new set and new graphics” will be accompanied by “a whole new approach to delivering the day’s events.”
“We have to do more news,” Smith says. “We’ve already given up the ‘coming up’ teasing… We did that because viewers said that’s what they wanted.” “We’re not going to do more crap, we’re not going to do more titillating [stories], Hollywood-movie reviews and jokes.”
The new look will debut in September, the 8th anniversary of the show. Smith’s program has been the #1 program at 7pmET, since 2001.
Some more gems, after the jump…
On the assumption that people like their evening news just the way it is:
Smith: That’s why our industry is dying. If you don’t change, you will die. Because the world is changing around us. If people who sit in executive boardrooms in midtown Manhattan and go out for cocktails with their executive friends and don’t get in touch with the way the world is acting and reacting, this industry will die. We’re not going to. We’re going to change.
On whether or not, he would moderate a debate:
Smith: It has been talked about. But I don’t deal with people whose job it is to not tell you anything very well. I want to know some things. But [the candidates] are not going to tell us. If you try to get answers from people these days, they turn it around and make you a villain. And I’ve run into this. If a liberal comes on and won’t answer questions and you pound and pound, you’re a right-wing nut. If a conservative comes on and won’t answer questions, you’re a crazy lefty. All you do is alienate people and you don’t get anywhere. If there were a way to make someone answer a freakin’ question, I’d be interested in doing it.