Previous post
In an extremely sudden and shocking announcement this morning, Fox News issued a statement saying Tucker Carlson is ousted, effective immediately.
#BREAKING: "Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways." pic.twitter.com/kY1mlJxzOV
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2023
This is huge given that Fox News has greatly benefitted from the ratings Tucker Carlson’s show brings to the network.
Carlson was Fox’s top-rated prime time host, netting an average of more than 3 million viewers per night, the most of any pundit on cable television.
Needless to say, there will be a gigantic ratings drop tonight. Oh sure, people will tune in to see what anyone from Fox will say on tonight’s broadcast, but if nothing is said, even as Harris Faulkner announced it on her show…viewers will go elsewhere.
That is definitely a reason why this news is so shocking. Fox News has issued the statement, but Tucker doesn’t even get one last broadcast??
Beyond the news itself, what's really bizarre and eyebrow-raising about Tucker's departure from Fox is that they aren't even giving him a final appearance to say goodbye to viewers or tell them about whatever he's doing next. They're just disappearing him. https://t.co/MUJGAle0PT
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) April 24, 2023
To be sure, the speculation is rampant about the Dominion case and the settlement last week.
The announcement came less than a week after Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the network for false claims about the 2020 election, for $787.5 million hours before opening arguments were to begin. Carlson was among several on-air personalities expected to testify.
Many of Carlson’s private messages were released in motions filed by Dominion, revealing that the host was skeptical of many of the election-fraud claims made on-air by Trump-affiliated attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.
Others opinions may vary, but I myself was incredibly skeptical of Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani’s claims. I’ve always thought those two were the among the worst decisions Trump made when talking about the 2020 election and the issues therein.
So, does that mean it was the Dominion settlement that led to this abrupt and very shocking move by Fox News? At the moment, no one seems to know. Not only that, it seems everyone AT Fox News didn’t see this coming!
Tucker gave the keynote address over the weekend to the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Gala. It’s worth your time to listen to it all.
There’s a lot we don’t know right now about why this happened. It could be the Dominion case, or it could be the January 6 footage aired a couple months ago. Who knows? Furthermore, this was definitely not expected as Tucker even discussed being ‘back on Monday’ at the end of his broadcast on Friday.
Here was the end of what turned out to be Tucker Carlson's final Fox News show last Friday. Certainly no indication that he didn't expect to be on the air tonight. In fact Tucker's final words are, "we'll be back on Monday." pic.twitter.com/F9R5MpWHDK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2023
Meanwhile, the New York Times helpfully threw up its 2022 series on Tucker, in which they claimed he stoked white fear on his broadcasts. All because he dared to mention what we know to be true on numerous fronts including the fact that illegal immigration is harming this country, and the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots caused billions in damage and no one faced any consequences.
And CNN is doing the happy dance.
#Breaking Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News, there will not be a send off show.
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) April 24, 2023
CNN of course is thrilled. pic.twitter.com/NTbwEWsD6v
Which is funny on CNN’s part given that Don Lemon just got canned by that network!
Ultimately, this is a significant move by Fox News, and it will be very interesting to see what reasons are given.
Something else to consider is that this move is a game changer not only for Fox News, but for the media as a whole AND very possibly the 2024 election season.
One final thought. What will Tucker do next?
Feature Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons
Fred Ross says: And once the Murdochs push Maria B. out the door too, Greg Gutfeld will be the only reason to watch FNC. Whoda thunkit?
A reader says: I just love how this is the first time the Dominion payout has been mentioned, possibly even the whole lawsuit in general. And still, no mention of the things discovery uncovered regarding how Fox and the hosts knew they were lying about the 2020 election results, and how they continued to lie on air. There’s proof that the election wasn’t “stolen” and that Fox and Trump and his inner circle knew. But of course that can’t be mentioned because you’d likely lose readers…
The conspiracy theory about Tucker’s firing having to do with January 6th are, of course, false. Current reporting as of now is that the firing likely had to do with the lawsuit by former producer Abby Grossberg. I’m sure Dominion didn’t help any, and neither will Smartmatic and their lawsuit. So in the end, Tucker was just too much of a liability for the company. I’m not sure any of the writers or readers here have any idea what might be coming with Smartmatic. All of those things plus who knows what else could truly lead to the end of Fox. Maybe not, but I suppose we’ll see.
2 Comments