The 8pm slot is a disaster for Fox; that much people know. Fox has lost 70% of viewers "in the demo" of viewers 25-54 in that hour. Tucker was one of the few people at Fox who could bring in young audiences, now that's gone.
But the unexpected disaster is Hannity.
a newsman
@a_newsman
Holy Christ. Young people have abandoned Fox News in primetime with Hannity now below 100k in the demo and Tuckers old time slot losing more than 70% of its young audience. Catastrophic.
Hannity is now at #26 in the demo, below the lowly Anderson Cooper, Joy Reid, Jake Tapper, Katie Tur, and Erin Burnett. The Ingraham Angle is at #28.
Fox News' prime-time viewership dramatically decreased without Tucker Carlson, according to Nielsen, the data and marketing measurement firm.
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Carlson's eponymous 8 p.m. ET show averaged 3.2 million viewers during the first quarter of 2023, meaning that ratings fell 47% without him.
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"Hannity" viewership declined 20% from last week, averaging 2 million viewers, while 1.56 million people tuned into "The Ingraham Angle," down 12%.
Fox News' loss appears to have bolstered viewership at Newsmax.
"Eric Bolling The Balance" had 562,000 viewers during Carlson's typical 8 p.m. slot, marking a fivefold increase from last Tuesday when Carlson was interviewing Elon Musk.
Newsmax's "Rob Schmitt Tonight," "Prime News" and "Greg Kelly Reports" also all doubled in size from last week.
The Paul Ryan-led Brain Trust at Fox corporate has a plan of how to dig itself out of this hole: They're just going to keep on leaking video and texts of Tucker saying possibly, maybe?, politically-incorrect things to Noted Conservative Standard-Bearers the New York Times and Media Matters, and trust that Tucker's audience, once they hear him saying non-woke things, will abandon him.
Great plan, Irena!
Fox wants you to know -- through the Dirt Laundering Service of the New York Times -- that Tucker Carlson said "it's not how white men fight" when he saw J6 protesters gang-attacking an antifa militia member.
A text message sent by Tucker Carlson that set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial showed its most popular host sharing his private, inflammatory views about violence and race.
The discovery of the message contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson's firing.
In the message, sent to one of his producers in the hours after violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Carlson described how he had recently watched a video of a group of men -- Trump supporters, he said -- violently attacking "an Antifa kid."
It was "three against one, at least," he wrote.
And then he expressed a sense of dismay that the attackers, like him, were white.
"Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously," he wrote.
"It's not how white men fight," he said. But he said he found himself for a moment wanting the group to kill the person he had described as the Antifa kid.
By the way: In that text, Tucker criticizes himself for feeling this way.
Tucker Carlson January 7, 2021 -- 04:18:04 PM UTC
A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It's not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they'd hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn't good for me. I'm becoming something I don't want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I'm sure I'd hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn't gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don't care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?
Sean Davis
@seanmdav
This is all they've got? A text in which Tucker mocks white people for not knowing how to fight for keeps, criticizing himself for dehumanizing a J6 Antifa rioter over politics, then expresses how doing so is wrong and destructive?
"If I don't care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?"
That's the kill shot offered to the New York Times of all places? How pathetic.
Fox News should consider the post-Tucker environment in which Tucker Carlson not only competes against Fox, but releases all of his dirt about Fox to conservative outlets.
So far, he hasn't. But what happens when Tucker begins spilling the beans about Fox's very liberal management and the routine censorship they impose on hosts? The sudden unscheduled vacations, which Fox then lies about and claims had been secretly scheduled for weeks?
Maybe this isn't about damaging Tucker. Maybe at this point, this is about justifying Rupert Murdoch's senile, egotistical snap decision to fire Fox's number one draw.
Maybe this is about attempting to convince shareholders not to fire the entire f***ing board.