How Tucker Carlson Will Lose Influence without Fox

By Philip Klein

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

 

Regardless of their views on Tucker Carlson, most people assume that he will land on his feet when the dust settles on his departure from Fox. I think this assumption is largely correct. With his devoted following, he should have no problem making money at another organization, or with some sort of independent venture. If you can attract an audience of millions, and get hundreds of thousands of people to pay a monthly fee for whatever platform you’re on, you are not going to have much trouble making money.

 

Having acknowledged that, here’s where I think his influence may suffer. Carlson averaged 3.3 million nightly viewers. While many of those viewers were tuning in specifically to see him, there was a decent chunk of people who were just regular Fox viewers who are in the habit of having the channel on and who will watch whatever is on at 8 p.m. We don’t particularly know where the ratings will settle once Fox has a permanent replacement. In the first night without him, they dropped to 2.6 million. So, clearly Fox took an immediate hit from ousting Carlson.

 

But one of the reasons why the 8 p.m. time slot was so important to Carlson is that it was an opportunity for him to expose traditional Republicans to his brand of conservatism, which challenges many conventional views, especially on economics and foreign policy. For millions of Fox viewers, Carlson was the only person exposing them to arguments criticizing U.S. support for Ukraine or questioning conservatives’ devotion to free markets and limited government. And he was a highly effective advocate for his positions. At 8 p.m. on Fox, Carlson was the most influential voice in media pushing the Republicans to go from being the party of Paul Ryan to being the party of Senator J. D. Vance.

 

Carlson may make a bajillion dollars on his own once he figures out his next step, but whatever his venture is, it will likely attract his devoted fan base who largely agree with him, rather than casual viewers with traditional Republican sensibilities.