In 2021, Mike Richards lasted one episode as the new host of Jeopardy! — following about a year as executive producer behind the scenes — before old podcast comments ended his tenure in a very public fireball.
Four years later, he is the CEO of The Daily Wire.
When we speak by phone less than 24 hours after The Daily Wire announcement, Richards, 50, sounds relaxed, energetic and eager to discuss growth, subscriptions, investigative journalism and what he repeatedly describes as “the audience.” The conversation occasionally drifts into culture war territory, but it mostly sounds like a veteran TV exec explaining programming strategy after a corporate restructuring — which is pretty much what this is.
Founded in 2015 by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing, The Daily Wire has spent the last decade evolving from a conservative commentary site into something much bigger and harder to pin down: a self-contained ecosystem attempting to rival mainstream media companies while openly rejecting many of their norms.
It has launched movies, children’s programming, documentaries, podcasts, investigative reporting and subscription streaming. In recent months, however, the company has weathered layoffs, internal turbulence and increasingly public ideological fractures on the American right — particularly around Shapiro, its biggest star by far, and his ongoing support of Israel through the war in Gaza, and now in Iran.
