Mark Levin arguably ranks just behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for influence in the world of conservative talk radio hosts. Fox adds another pro-Trump host Mark Levin gives the network one more fierce defender of the president, protecting its flank from alt-right competitors.

Fox News announced on Tuesday that it is hiring conservative commentator Mark Levin to host a new show at 10 p.m. Sundays, drawing the network ever closer to its pro-Trump base and further protecting it from future competition on the right.

“It’s clearly another step in Fox News Channel’s evolution to a more Trump-friendly series of programming,” said Dan Shelley, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association. “It’s right in their current wheelhouse.”


The show, which will be called “Life, Liberty & Levin,” is scheduled to debut in February.

Levin, who arguably ranks just behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for influence in the world of conservative talk-radio hosts, has been critical of President Donald Trump in the past. He supported Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and even identified himself as a member of the “Never Trump” movement — until he decided to support Trump.

He has seldom looked back since. Levin helped popularize the conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was wiretapping Trump Tower — an idea ultimately picked up by Trump himself — and is known for promoting ideas in line with the president. Just recently, he has bashed the Robert Mueller investigation, backed Trump on “extreme vetting” and complained about the “liberal media” ignoring various Clinton-related issues.

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Matt Drudge broke the news of Levin’s hire on his Twitter feed Tuesday morning, writing, “Levin, who has sold millions of books and hosts a top-rated radio broadcast, was warmly received at White House last week during meets with TrumpPence.”

Though Fox News has always been known for the conservative tilt of its commentators, in the year since Trump’s election, the network has stuffed its lineup of opinion hosts with consistent cheerleaders for the president. Former mainstay Megyn Kelly was known for feuding with Trump, and even Bill O’Reilly — who was forced out by the network in April amid sexual harassment accusations — would break with him occasionally, but Fox’s current prime-time lineup of Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham rarely criticizes Trump, and goes to great lengths to defend him. Levin fits into that mold.

“He has a hard right bent on the ideological spectrum,” said Shelley, whose group provides advocacy and resources for broadcast and digital journalists, “and because of that I think he’s a perfect kind of fit for what Fox is trying to do with its opinion programming.”

The 10 p.m. Sunday time slot is not a high-profile one, though it could lead to bigger things, according to Brian Wieser, a senior analyst at Pivotal Research.

“If someone is getting a Sunday 10 p.m. show, it’s safe to say that’s a trial run,” he said. If viewing levels build or the show develops well, he said, “then it can be given a time slot which is more likely to get greater viewing.”

Shelley also noted that the move locks in Levin — a highly established name in conservative media — from joining other competitors.

“We all know that Breitbart and others are seeing in the current Trump deregulatory climate opportunities to take on Fox News, so Fox, for the first time maybe in its entire history, is having to protect its flanks,” he said.

Over the past year, Fox has been steadily adding programming, including three more hours of "Fox & Friends" in the morning and three more hours of news programming during the day, in addition to building out its weekend lineup. Levin’s show will replace what is currently a replay of "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace.

Wieser said there’s a certain economic logic to Fox doubling down on pro-Trump hosts. Last month, for instance, Fox News was the top-rated cable news network with, according to Wieser’s analysis of Nielsen numbers, 24.1 percent of Americans watching at least one minute of the network. Considering, he says, that Trump seems to have a solid base of support that hovers around 35 percent to 40 percent, appealing to that hard-core group can be fruitful.

“If they get 100 percent of the news consumption from 24 percent of the population,” he said, “that’s a big business.”