Fox News Channel recently fired Tucker Carlson. Before Tucker was fired, he was consistently one of its top hosts from a viewership perspective and the best at bringing in the key 25-54 advertising demographic. But now he’s gone, and Fox News Channel’s ratings are collapsing, particularly in that ad demographic.
Such is what Megyn Kelly pointed out in a sharp and to the point tweet, saying, “You can’t compare Tucker’s Fri night ratings to this week’s Mon/Tue. (Fridays in prime are where ratings go to die.) Compare his last Mon/Tue to this week’s Mon/Tue. It’s a bloodbath: they lost HALF their audience.”
That was in response to a tweet thread from Brian “Mr. Potatohead” Stelter, who was fired by CNN months ago. Stelter, posting about the crisis of viewership at Fox News after Tucker was fired, said:
Fox News viewership at 8pm ET:
Tucker’s finale: 2.65 million
Monday: 2.59 million
Tuesday: 1.70 million
Wednesday: 1.33 million
On Thursday, Fox attracted 2.4 mil viewers for “The Five,” but couldn’t hold the audience. “Special Report” at 6 averaged 1.8 mil, “Jesse Watters Primetime” at 7 averaged 1.6 mil, and the Tucker replacement at 8 netted 1.46 mil. On the same day last week, Tucker drew 3 million.
One of the many wrinkles of this week: Fox’s 7pm star Jesse Watters is off this week. Fill-ins usually don’t rate as well. Despite that, more viewers are watching at 7 than 8, when it’s supposed to be the opposite. Tucker’s absence has blown a massive hole in Fox’s daily ratings.
You can’t compare Tucker’s Fri night ratings to this week’s Mon/Tue. (Fridays in prime are where ratings go to die.) Compare his last Mon/Tue to this week’s Mon/Tue. It’s a bloodbath: they lost HALF their audience. https://t.co/bH1g6epeC0
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) April 27, 2023
Commenting on Kelly’s post, people said that they’ve either already cancelled Fox News or are planning on doing so soon. “And the funny thing is I have a bunch of Mr. @TuckerCarlson exclusive interviews to watch on @foxnation before I cancel my subscription. Just a short time left to go.. ⏰”
“Only the beginning of their collapse,” another user replied.
Tucker, for his part, is already back to reeling in a massive audience. In fact, in a video he posted to Twitter on Wednesday night, it only took an hour for the tweet to rack up better ratings than his old network.
Other than that video, Tucker has mostly stayed out of the spotlight and stuck to spending time with his wife and having fun, presumably just taking it easy while his newly-hired, high-power lawyer fights with Fox Corp over the terms of his termination. That would be noted the entertainment attorney Bryan Freeman.
Forbes, reporting on Freedman’s career in its article on his being hired by Lemon and Tucker, reported that Freedman has handled similar cases, such as Megyn Kelly’s messy departure from NBC, and one of his more famous wins came when he won a payout for a client fired for comments deemed offensive, something that could likely help out Tucker Carlson. In that outlet’s words:
Freedman, based out of Los Angeles, boasts a list of clients like former Bachelor host Chris Harrison, film director Quentin Tarantino and actress Gabrielle Union, while his law firm’s website refers to him as “the go to lawyer in crisis litigation.”
Freedman has dealt with messy news separations before—he represented Megyn Kelly after NBC fired her in 2019, reaching an agreement with the network to pay her contract in full despite an early termination, securing Kelly roughly $30 million.
Perhaps Freedman’s most notable win came two years later, when he worked to secure a $10 million payout for Harrison after ABC dropped him as Bachelor host over comments he made defending a contestant’s decision to attend a Confederate-themed party.
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