Fox News Faces The Consequences Of Their Actions

OPINION:  This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion

The reasons for Fox News to ‘part ways’ with the most popular talking head is unclear to outsiders but appears to be leaning toward trying to knee-cap him at a time of his growing popularity and growing understanding of the Populist movement, which Fox News hates so much.

Steve Bannon of the War Room told his audience this week that he believes Carlson was taken off Fox, but he will still be getting paid to force him to be quiet.

Carlson had appeared on numerous podcasts with independent journalists and made speeches at big think tanks saying that he has grown disillusioned with the rigged systems he grew up in and that he participated with.

He told one podcaster that his own Dad had been in media, and so what he was learning about the world of politics and news was shocking to him. Carlson said that he regretted not understanding the situation better- hinting at a major shift in ideology from his earlier days at Fox News.

That discussion about his changes happened on this podcast:

“I have spent my life in the media, and that is a major part of my revelation that the media is part of the control apparatus. I spent my life in that, and I regret that. Not being skeptical and calling people names. Now I see it only matters what is true, what really happened. I participated in the culture and I regret that,” Carlson said. “I didn’t see it at all. I am ashamed. They are not here to inform you on things that really matter.”

That sort of compassion and ethics for the average working man and woman is something Bannon talks about a lot and that Carlson has recently embraced.

And now it looks like Fox News has taken out another champion of the people, and the people are not at all happy about it.

Red State reported on some details and updates of what has happened with Carlson since his removal from the network:

“As we noted, it didn’t seem to have affected Carlson’s mood, as he seemed to be having a good time with his wife down in Florida. He also put out a video on Twitter. While he didn’t talk specifically about the “parting of the ways,” I think he was making it clear that he wasn’t going to be silenced.”

But it is affecting Fox. They’ve taken a huge hit in just one day since the news broke on Monday, the outlet reported, adding:

“They had Fox host Brian Kilmeade stand in for Carlson on Monday night and for now intend to have rotating hosts. It’s safe to say that did not go well. With some rubberneckers tuning in to see what would go on, he got 2.6 million people. But then the next night on Tuesday, it dropped like a stone to 1.7 million.”

While they “won” the night (because everyone else still was awful), the difference between the draw of Tucker versus without him was stark. While they beat MSNBC’s Chris Hayes’ 1.45 and CNN’s Anderson Cooper with 678,000, Carlson averaged 3.3 million last year, and just two weeks ago, he had 3.2. million- Red State pointed out:

There was also another important thing that took a hit — the vital 25-54 demographic. Fox landed in third place with that all-important group.

The program had a rating of 0.24 in the 25-54 age demographic, while Carlson’s show saw a 0.37 rating in the same demographic on April 17, the data shows. The show averaged nearly 2.6 million viewers in total, below Carlson’s show Monday, which averaged roughly 3.7 million viewers. [….]

Here is some more analysis:

In 2022, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” ranked second place in total cable news viewership with 3.3 million total viewers, according to Adweek.

It wasn’t only Tucker’s slot that was affected, other shows were hit with a decline as well without the strong lead-in that Tucker provided. Newsmax for instance benefitted from people’s anger at Fox:

Without the tentpole that Carlson’s program provided, the ratings for other Fox News shows were down as well. “Hannity” averaged 2 million viewers, a decline of 20% from the previous week. “The Ingraham Angle” scored 1.56 million, down 12%.

Newsmax appeared to be the beneficiary of Carlson fans looking for an alternative. “Eric Bolling The Balance” pulled in 562,000 viewers in the 8 p.m. Eastern hour, a fivefold increase over last Tuesday when Carlson was his competition (with guest Elon Musk). Bolling is a former Fox News host.

The rest of the Newsmax lineup saw a lift as well, with the audiences for “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” “Prime News” and “Greg Kelly Reports” all doubling in size from a week ago.

So we’ll have to see how this shakes out, but it’s clear this is going to hit Fox right in the pocketbook.

And it appears that Carlson did a bit of an experiment:

What’s truly funny is that his remarks from Twitter already have far more viewers than the Fox offerings in his timeslot, with over 7.4 million views of his remarks (and 22 million impressions of his tweet) as of this writing and likely a lot more to come.

If Tucker can communicate something that quickly and get that much of an audience on Twitter, he doesn’t really need Fox News.

The last laugh is going to be on Fox. Watch.

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