Untucked
Last Friday, Tucker Carlson unknowingly hosted his final show at Fox News, as the network confirmed on Monday it was parting ways with the controversial prime-time personality, an abrupt firing of one of the network’s most-watched anchors. Carlson’s departure came in a week of cable chaos — with high-profile exits at CNN and NBCU — and just days after Fox settled its lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787m, a trial which saw Carlson's texts and emails released during discovery.
Carlson had been a prominent figure at Fox News since joining in 2009, but his screen time — per Stanford’s Cable TV News Analyzer — skyrocketed in 2017 when he took over the coveted 8pm slot from commentator Bill O'Reilly. Regularly racking up 20+ hours of screentime a month, Carlson’s show often drew more than 3 million viewers, consistently ranking as the #1 or #2 cable news show.
That meant big bucks for Fox. Despite some premium advertisers boycotting the show, Variety reports that advertisers spent more than $77m on Tucker Carlson Tonight last year, more than the ~$54m worth of airtime that advertisers bought on The Ingraham Angle and the $50m spent on Hannity. The firing suggests that Fox execs are keen to show that no personality is bigger than the network, with plans to rotate hosts for the prized 8pm slot suggesting the decision was made abruptly, with no “succession” plan in place.
