'Fox & Friends' co-host Steve Doocy cutting back to three days a week

Steve Doocy, one of the most reliably present personalities on morning TV over the last three decades, is cutting back on both that presence and reliability. The "Fox & Friends" host announced Thursday he'll trim his workload on the program to three days a week — with all his appearances going forward originating from Florida, where his wife, Kathy, now lives.

"After decades of getting up at 3:30 and driving into New York City [from his home in New Jersey] in the dark, today is the last day I will host the show from the couch," Doocy said, according to a transcript released by Fox News Channel. "I am not retiring. I’m not leaving the show. I’m still a host, but it’s time for a change."

He went on to describe the Florida location as "strategic. It’s going to make it easier for me to report from Florida and other parts of America that don’t get a lot of network airtime. I’ll be going from the Carolinas to the Keys. From Middle America to Mar-a-Lago. So, call me the coast-to-coast host." Doocy is father to three adult children — Mary, Sally and Peter, who is one of FNC's senior White House correspondents — and grandfather to three, with a fourth expected to arrive arriving in July. He said Thursday he intends to spend time with all of them.

For "Fox & Friends" viewers, the change is significant: Since 1998, when the show launched, Doocy and Massapequa native Brian Kilmeade have been morning TV's most durable team, with Doocy often perched on the edge of the so-called "curvy" couch, his coiled energy a caffeine jolt in itself. (Co-hosts Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones will remain studio-bound.)

Doocy, a Kansas native who turns 69 this fall, has been on morning TV in New York since 1990. He was first on WNBC/4 ("House Party"), then the cable network America's Talking (also launched by FNC founder Roger Ailes), and on WCBS/2 — the 5 a.m. show, which he co-hosted with Cindy Hsu and Storm Field. He joined Fox at launch in 1996, as a weather forecaster. 

While a central part of the show's success, Doocy also got sideswiped by "Fox & Friend's" single greatest crisis — the sexual harassment charges filed against Ailes in 2016 by former "F&F" co-host Gretchen Carlson. Doocy was not named a co-defendant in the lawsuit, but the complaint said he belittled her by "generally attempting to put her in her place by refusing to accept and treat her as an intelligent and insightful female journalist rather than a blond female prop." Carlson later got a $20 million settlement and apology from Fox. Ailes, who was forced to resign that July, died less than year later, in May 2017.  

According to a transcript posted on the website Mediaite, the show on Thursday played a recorded message from President Donald Trump — an especially reliable viewer and guest over the years — who said "Hi Steve, it’s your all-time favorite president And I just want to congratulate you on your new and probably enhanced role. I just think you’re a fantastic guy. You’ve always treated me fairly — sometimes a little more fairly than other times, but that’s OK."

Doocy said he's be taking a 10-day break, then will be back on the air mid-month.