It’s been less than a week since Tucker Carlson was given the boot from Fox News, ending a 14-year career with the conservative news network. While details have been scarce in regards to the reasons behind Fox News’ shocking move, the network has been tasked with replacing one of the leading anchors in all of cable news. Carlson, meanwhile, might not have too much trouble finding a landing spot. Reports indicate Newsmax would love to swoop up the former talk show host, and they’re allegedly willing to offer him more than just a nice paycheck.
Newsmax, a fellow conservative leaning media organization, is reportedly interested in not just giving Tucker Carlson his own primetime show on their network, but allowing him to program the whole channel, per TMZ. That would give the former Fox News employee a huge amount of power, including making decisions about what shows would precede and follow his own. Network executives have apparently made it clear to the people around Carlson that he would play a big part in rebranding their channel.
Tucker Carlson is still under contract with Fox News, so no formal discussions with other networks are allowed at this point. However, when looking at other players in the conservative news game, Newsmax has reportedly seen a good bump in the numbers in the days following the Tucker Carlson Tonight host’s dismissal.
The Nielsen company showed (via Fortune) that Eric Bolling, whose Newsmax show shared the 8 p.m. ET timeslot with Tucker Carlson, saw his viewership increase from 122,000 on April 18 to 562,000 on the Tuesday following Carlson’s Fox News exit. On Wednesday, Bolling experienced a similar situation, with the week-over-week numbers increasing from 168,000 to 510,000.
It’s no surprise for Fox News that its viewers were seeking other avenues for their news, as the network saw an immediate dip in the ratings. Fox News reportedly lost around 600,000 viewers on average this week without Carlson in primetime. Tucker Carlson Tonight’s April 17 broadcast brought in around 3.2 million viewers, while the edition that aired the night of his dismissal roped in only 2.6 million viewers.
Of course with Tucker Carlson apparently unable to engage in discussions about future opportunities due to his contract, it’s unknown if he’s enticed by the power Newsmax is allegedly willing to offer him. TMZ also reported that NewsNation may want to throw its hat in the ring as well. The journalist broke his silence on April 26 with a 2-minute video on social media, and while he signed off by saying, “See you soon,” there was no discussion of when or where that will be.
Tucker Carlson’s parting of ways with Fox News came on the same day as Don Lemon was fired from CNN. That move was less surprising than Carlson’s, given Lemon was already under fire for various misconduct allegations, including “volatile behavior” toward his colleagues.
