Two weeks after previous Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s spectacular shooting from the channel, he appears to have actually found out his next action: Twitter.
Yes, truly. Carlson published a short video on his Twitter account on May 9 revealing the news. He applauded the social networks website, which has actually promoted its expected totally free speech bona fides considering that it was taken control of by Elon Musk last October. Carlson suggested that he was fired from Fox News for attempting to inform the “fullest” fact frequently. Twitter, it appears, won’t have such limitations. It likewise might not have actually an ensured wage, as Musk claims Carlson is just getting membership and marketing income, similar to any developer.
Carlson’s statement caps a troubled 2 weeks for him and Fox News. Since the expert’s stunning departure and evident shooting on April 24, reports have actually swirled regarding what the host of among the highest-rated programs on basic cable television perhaps might have done to warrant it. Fox News’s declaration said extremely little bit, simply that the 2 celebrations “have agreed to part ways” and “we thank him for his service to the network.” After 2 days of silence, Carlson lastly tweeted a video that didn’t straight attend to the scenario.
But it’s likewise looking a growing number of most likely that Carlson’s ouster was the outcome of a mix of aspects, consisting of disparaging remarks about Fox News executives, a hazardous office culture, and Carlson’s view that he was untouchable at Fox News which the network required him more than he required it.
Whatever the genuine factor(s), they sufficed that Fox News felt it required to cut off its most significant star without even offering him an opportunity to bid farewell. In the after-effects, Fox News’s 8 pm scores have actually cratered, while Carlson is tossing his lot in with (another) mercurial billionaire whose belief in liberty of speech has actually already been revealed to have limitations.
What’s Tucker Carlson already?
He’s on Twitter in a huge method. On May 9, Carlson published a short video on his Twitter account where he revealed the news, stating Twitter was the “last big [platform] remaining in the world” that permitted totally free speech, so that’s where he was going to bring a “new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and half years.”
It doesn’t appear like the most apparent next action for Carlson, however there likewise wasn’t truly anywhere else on tv for him to go. He’s now been fired from the 3 significant basic cable television news channels, Newsmax and OANN would be a significant action down, and his material is too questionable for network tv.
But Twitter under Musk is extremely thinking about enticing developers to the platform, and undoubtedly sees Carlson as a chance to show itself. To that end, Twitter has actually broadened character counts and video length for Twitter Blue customers, and it’s altered the old Twitter’s Super Follow function to “Subscriptions.” Musk has actually likewise assured that developers will get a share of income for advertisements in their reply threads, however Twitter hasn’t yet had the ability to make this a reality.
In Carlson, Musk gets a well-known face whose perfects appear to line up carefully with Musk’s own. The 2nd wealthiest individual on the planet has actually progressively leaned into extreme right politics, conspiracy theories, and harbors a long-running hatred of the news media that Carlson has actually just recently required to slamming. Perhaps more notably, Musk gets somebody that a number of his devoted fans and Twitter Blue customers like and will wish to see more of.
It’s not yet understood just how much money, if any, Twitter is paying Carlson for whatever material he eventually produces for the website. Musk claims that Twitter has “not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever” which he hopes “many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform.” But Musk has likewise said prior to that nobody would get unique treatment on his platform, just to offer confirmed Twitter represent totally free to accounts with 1 million fans and to countless accounts coming from companies.
What led up to all this?
On April 24, Fox News revealed that Tucker Carlson was no longer with the channel. His program, Tucker Carlson Tonight, which operated on the network for over 6 years, is over. Fox News Tonight will change it on an interim basis. Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade hosted its very first week. He briefly discussed Carlson’s departure, stating: “As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. I wish Tucker the best. I’m great friends with Tucker and always will be. But right now, it’s time for Fox News Tonight. So let’s get started.”
Carlson likewise had a popular put on Fox News’s streaming channel, Fox Nation, where he hosted a daytime talk program and a number of documentaries. Fox News’s declaration did not particularly discuss the future of his Fox Nation reveals, and Fox News did not react to ask for discuss what will occur to the streaming channel’s library of Carlson material.
Carlson was with Fox News considering that 2009, though his existence was reasonably small up until the best of Tucker Carlson Tonight in November 2016. Carlson’s last episode aired Friday, April 21, 2023.
What does Tucker Carlson need to state?
Initially, absolutely nothing. Carlson was uncharacteristically peaceful for 2 days, emerging on April 26 at 8 pm — the time his program would have been on the air — with a video. It was a two-minute-long diatribe about how effective individuals and the media are lying to the American public, and how there are couple of locations delegated discover the fact. It was almost equivalent from the monologues Carlson utilized to open his program with, to the reality that it didn’t truly state anything or straight address any concerns.
“Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some, and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon,” he said.
It was reported that Fox News wished to keep Carlson off the air throughout of his agreement, however Carlson had other concepts, and might have quit countless dollars to proceed to his next endeavor. He’s likewise, apparently, quite disturbed with Fox News and all set to go to war with his previous company.
How unexpected was his exit?
Very. Despite Fox News’s declaration that suggested the choice was shared, all indications indicate Carlson being fired with almost no caution. Carlson apparently didn’t understand he’d been cut up until minutes prior to it was revealed. Carlson likewise signed off on April 21, a Friday, with, “We’ll be back on Monday,” suggesting that he anticipated there would be a Monday reveal — which, clearly, never ever occurred.
Fox News itself didn’t appear to understand for sure that Carlson would be leaving up until near the real statement. On the early morning of April 24, the channel was still reportedly airing sneak peeks of Carlson’s program for that night, which did not air after all.
In the days following Carlson’s departure, he was still listed as a Fox News personality and his program was still referred to as the channel’s “flagship primetime cable news program.” A week later, those had finally been wiped from the site. Fox Nation removed Carlson’s likeness and shows from its front page within days.
Why did he leave Fox News?
Carlson’s departure has spawned rampant speculation but few facts so far. Fox News has publicly said very little, but many of the reports that portray Carlson in the worst possible light may well come from Fox News itself; the network is well-known for pushing its preferred narrative to the press when it wants to.
The defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems is believed to have played some role in this. Fox agreed to settle for $787.5 million a few days before Carlson’s firing, and the proximity of the two events makes it seem as though they’re related. But Fox jettisoned its most problematic host related to the Dominion suit, Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs, back in 2021. The network hasn’t fired any of its other hosts, some of whom said far worse than Carlson and were named in the lawsuits.
It’s possible that the lawsuit was a less direct cause of Carlson’s ouster. Carlson apparently criticized many of his colleagues and employers in texts that were uncovered as part of the case. While many of them were and still are redacted, Fox’s executives would have seen them. According to the New York Times, they somehow weren’t aware of them until just before the trial was about to begin. Whatever they said was somehow more objectionable than what Carlson regularly says on Fox News’ own airwaves, and preventing them from getting out was one of the reasons why Fox agreed to the last-minute settlement with Dominion.
A later Times report cited a specific redacted Carlson text where the host made racist comments in reference to a video of several Trump supporters attacking what he referred to as “an Antifa kid.”
“Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight,” Carlson allegedly said in the text.
Media Matters for America has also obtained behind-the-scenes videos from Carlson’s program where he described someone’s girlfriend as “kind of yummy” and makes a crack about his “postmenopausal fans.” He also criticized Fox Nation, saying that “nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks.”
Another possible factor is that Fox is being sued by one of Carlson’s former producers, Abby Grossberg, who accused the network of being openly sexist and said Carlson’s staff in particular denigrated women and Jewish people. Fox News has denied those allegations.
More recent reports attribute Carlson’s firing not to one singular event, but to all of them. They point to a pattern of insubordination, disrespect toward Fox News executives, and growing reservations over the content of his broadcasts. Rolling Stone says that Carlson’s intense dislike of Fox News PR head Irena Briganti was a significant factor in his departure. When he tried to get the powerful communications chief fired, he sealed his own fate.
There are some pro-Carlson reports, too. Breitbart’s account portrayed Carlson and Dan Bongino, who announced he was leaving the network on April 20, as innocent victims of Murdoch’s attempt to take back control of his network in the wake of the Dominion settlement. Getting rid of two of its most visible stars, who were also its most independent thinkers, was supposed to send a message to everyone else. And former Fox News host Megyn Kelly has been a vocal defender of Carlson, though there’s no love lost between her and Fox News.
Is there any precedent for something like this?
Carlson himself got the 8 pm time slot after its inhabitant, Bill O’Reilly, was fired in 2017. Tucker Carlson Tonight, which was then in the 9 pm slot, moved to O’Reilly’s spot.
But the circumstances behind the two men’s ousters are much different. O’Reilly’s came after the revelation that Fox paid millions of dollars to cover up sexual harassment allegations against him. His problematic behavior was known about for years. When advertisers boycotted O’Reilly’s show, it was the nail in the coffin. There’s no indication that Carlson is involved in anything like that, and his firing was much more surprising.
There is also precedent for Carlson being fired from jobs. He left CNN in 2005 and MSNBC in 2008. Both times, the firing followed the cancellations of his shows, Crossfire and Tucker, respectively, reportedly due to low ratings. Carlson did not have this issue at Fox News.
How big was Carlson’s audience?
Carlson regularly averaged over 3 million viewers, making his show one of the highest-rated on all of basic cable. He led Fox News’s ratings for years, but his supremacy had actually recently been challenged: Another Fox News show, The Five, averaged higher ratings than he did in 2022.
Can Fox News recover from this?
If Carlson’s ascendancy at Fox News is anything to go by, the network will probably continue to thrive. When O’Reilly was fired, his was the channel’s highest-rated show, and he seemed irreplaceable. O’Reilly had been with Fox News from its launch and was, for all intents and purposes, its face.
When Carlson moved to O’Reilly’s 8 pm slot, he was able to keep most of O’Reilly’s audience in the desirable 25- to 54-year-old demographic. In fact, he thrived. By 2020, Carlson’s show was at the top of Fox News’s ratings, buoyed by the pandemic and Trump’s election loss. He even set a new record as the most-watched cable news show ever. Carlson developed his own rabid fandom, and weathered plenty of controversies of his own, surviving advertiser boycotts, accusations of racism and sexism, and unabashed and continued support of Russia. Fox gave him two reveals on Fox Nation in an effort to drive up the streaming network’s subscriptions in 2021. By the end of Carlson’s run, he’d become a powerful and influential figure both at Fox News and with the right wing in general.
In the days following Carlson’s dismissal, things didn’t go so well for Fox News ratings-wise. Carlson was averaging about 3 million viewers for what would be his last week. The interim replacement averaged just 1.65 million viewers the next week, with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes winning some of those nights. Perhaps more worrying for Fox, its conservative news rival, Newsmax, has actually seen its 8 pm viewership increase by hundreds of thousands of people. It’s still nowhere close to overtaking Fox, however we know from the Dominion lawsuit texts that the network is terrified of losing viewers, especially to Newsmax.
These are grim numbers, but it’s still very early days, and the network hasn’t settled on a permanent 8 pm show or host yet. Fox News has actually already proven itself to be bigger than any one of its stars. We’ll see if that’s still true.
Update, May 10, 10:20 am ET: This story was originally published on April 24 and has actually been updated multiple times, most recently to add more details about Carlson’s new program on Twitter and prepares to start his own media empire.
