Since Fox News parted ways with Tucker Carlson last week, the network’s ratings have taken a substantial hit. Fox News has unsuccessfully tried to find a replacement for Tucker’s slot that will sustain the ratings the former host had.
Fox News will reportedly have a rotation of hosts filling the primetime slot that Tucker Carlson’s now available air time. Brian Kilmeade was the first to fill Tucker’s 8:00 p.m. time slot, and his performance certainly did not match Carlson’s. Kilmeade was also not well-received by outraged viewers who were displeased with Tucker’s exit from the company. The Hollywood Reporter wrote about the drop in ratings:
Unsurprisingly, Fox News ratings suffered Monday night without the channel’s most watched host.
After the surprise of Fox News and Tucker Carlson “agree[ing] to part ways” on Monday, the network’s 8 p.m. hour had a significantly smaller audience Monday night. The debut of Fox News Tonight, hosted by Brian Kilmeade (the first in a series of rotating hosts), pulled in just under 2.6 million viewers — about 21 percent below the average for Tucker Carlson Tonight (3.3 million viewers) over the past eight Mondays.
Conservative commentator Collin Rugg accurately portrayed the way many viewers feel about the state of Fox News without Tucker. “Brian Kilmeade takes over for ‘Fox News Tonight’ in replace of Tucker Carlson. Great show if you are wanting to fall asleep. Fox News is dead,” Rugg said.
Fox News recently announced that Lawrence Jones would be the next anchor to fill Tucker’s spot. Jones will be covering the slot all this week according to Page Six, which reported that Jones, “the youngest black solo host of a program in cable news,” will fill the 8 pm slot that Tucekr previously hosted.
The move is likely occurring because of the massive ratings hit Fox News experienced after removing Tucker and infuriating conservatives by doing so. In fact, “Fox News Tonight” has experienced a sharp, painful decline in total viewership and viewership in the key 25-54 demographic since Carlson’s departure. For example, on Thursday of last week, MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” dominated the 25-54 demographic, one that Fox News had been dominating for months on end.
Though it’s still technically true that Fox News is beating its CNN and MSNBC rivals, the degree to which it is doing so plummeted after it ousted Tucker, as many of its more conservative former viewers decided to boycott it to protest its unfair and seemingly woke treatment of Tucker. Revolver reported on Fox’s steep drop in viewership, saying:
On Tuesday night, during the 8:00 pm hour Fox News only attracted 1.7 million viewers, down significantly from the numbers Tucker brought in. And take a look at Hannity’s ratings. He’s down approximately a million eyeballs.
Tucker was a huge “lead-in” boost for Sean, and without those numbers, Sean could be big in trouble—Laura Ingraham, too. Keep in mind, last Tuesday when Tucker was on air at 8:00 pm, Fox news registered these numbers: 481,000/3,223,000.
Last night at 8:00 pm, without Tucker Carlson, these were the numbers: 159,333 | 1,777,000.
Fox News is down a whopping two-thirds in the key demographic.
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