Eric Bolling Is Leaving Newsmax After Three Years as a Primetime Host

After three years with the network, Newsmax and Eric Bolling have issued a statement announcing that the former primetime host will be leaving the network. The news of Eric's departure, which was first announced on May 31, came as a surprise to many long-time viewers of Eric on the network.

Newsmax, a far-right network known for pushing views more extreme than even Fox News, has become more and more popular with a certain segment of the right in recent years. Here's what we know about what happened to Eric, and why he's leaving Newsmax now.

In a statement issued jointly by Eric and Newsmax, they said that Eric left to pursue other projects. “It’s time for Eric to embark on new endeavors,” it read. “Eric and Newsmax are grateful for their time together and proud of the work they have produced.”

Eric's website says that he will be announcing his next project in the coming weeks.

Eric was on the air as recently as May 30 with his show The Balance, which was covering the trial of Donald Trump at the time. Newsmax has announced that a rotating lineup of hosts will be covering Eric's 8 p.m. slot in his absence. Eric was averaging 311,000 viewers in the hour during the month of May, which was a 34 percent drop from this time last year.

It's unclear whether declining ratings played any part in Eric's decision to leave the network, and whether he was let go or decided to part ways on his own. Before joining Newsmax, Eric was a commentator on Fox News until 2017, when he parted ways with the network after being accused of sending unsolicited photos of male genitalia to both current and former female colleagues at the network.

Eric's show is not alone in experiencing declining ratings in more recent years. Newsmax emerged as a player in the right wing media space in 2020 and 2021 as Fox viewers became frustrated after Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.

More recently, though, Newsmax has settled into a distant fourth in the cable ratings, as most right wing viewers still default to Fox for their nightly viewing.

Like Fox and other players in the right wing media ecosystem, Newsmax has also been bedeviled by lawsuits related to claims that Newsmax hosts have made on the air. Newsmax is currently facing a defamation case against Smartmatic, a voting equipment maker who came under repeated attack on the air by Newsmax hosts following the 2020 election.

Newsmax repeatedly aired claims that Smartmatic had altered votes during that election to ensure that Joe Biden would emerge victorious. In addition to being false, these claims also had little to do with the company to begin with. Smartmatic's machines were only used in Los Angeles county in 2020, and were not used in any of the swing states that ultimately decided the election in Biden's favor.