Tucker’s Unceremonious Departure
Following the announcement of Fox News’ $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting System, there was speculation over whether the unprecedented outcome of that litigation would prompt changes in the operations of Fox News, a cable channel wholly-owned by Fox Corporation. This question was partially answered a few days later when Fox News announced that it was cancelling “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, the network’s most popular prime-time program with three million viewers. This was a highly surprising development since Fox News was in the process of renegotiating its contracts with the cable companies and was seeking a large increase in what the cable companies were willing to pay to carry its programing. It was also a surprise to Carlson who had signed off his Friday night program assuring his viewers that he would be back with them the following Monday night.
To be sure, Rupert Murdoch, the principal owner and Executive Chairman of Fox Corporation, could not have been happy about the outcome of the Dominion lawsuit and was believed to be looking for someone to blame. Still, he had personally directed that Fox News continue to promote Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election had been stolen. If anyone other than Murdoch himself should be blamed, he might have directed his rath toward his attorneys who didn’t press him to settle the litigation before a plethora of internal communications had revealed that Fox News was both well aware that the 2020 presidential election had not been tainted by fraud and, more particularly, that there were no problems associated with the Dominion voting machines.
Why then was Carlson chosen as the apparent scapegoat? He had the largest viewership of all of Fox News’ primetime talk show hosts, making his departure significantly more costly than terminating one or more of its other talk show hosts. More to the point, his on-air comments about Dominion were far more subdued than those voiced on the programs hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro or Lou Dobbs. The short answer seems to be that it was not his on-air comments that sealed his fate, but more likely other things he had said or done, many of which had been already revealed in Dominion’s court filings.
One theory is that Carlson’s internal communications were filled with misogynistic remarks. Fox News has long been tarred with having a hostile work environment for women as evidenced by the previous forced departures of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. This theory is reinforced by the fact that Abby Grossberg, a Carlson’s producer, had already initiated a sexual harassment litigation against Carlson and Fox News as well as a suit alleging that Fox had encouraged her to provide misleading testimony in her deposition in the Dominion litigation. These two suits will likely prove costly to Fox, although not nearly as costly as the Dominion settlement and probably far less costly than the $40 million which Fox will have to pay Carlson through the end of his current contract.
Another explanation of Carlson’s sudden departure is that his internal communications contained a number of unflattering remarks regarding members of the Fox News management. It’s not clear what impact this may have had, because I have no way of assessing how openly he might have expressed such views or how thin-skinned Rupert Murdock and his son, Lachlan, might be. My guess is that they were willing to tolerate almost all of Carlson’s disparaging remarks as long as he continued to generate TV’s largest prime time audience.
Yet another possible explanation is that Carlson’s internal communications included a host of derogatory remarks about Donald Trump. As disclosed in court filings submitted by Dominion, Carlson bluntly characterized Trump as a “destroyer” and a “demonic force” whose presidency was a “disaster.” These communications also included a statement that he hates Trump “passionately.” Although Rupert Murdock has made some unfavorable public comments about Trump, none of them even approach the level of deprecation contained in Carlson’s internal communications. In many respects this is far more serious in Fox world than Carlson’s misogynistic remarks because Fox’s viewers tend to worship Trump.
Despite knowledge to the contrary, Fox News repeatedly embraced Trump’s Big Lie for the simple reason that it did not wish to alienate Trump loyalists who make up the bulk of its TV viewers. Those viewers support its TV ratings, which in turn had enabled it in 2022 to generate annual revenues of $14 billion and net income of $1.2 billion. By revealing his disdain for Trump, Carlson’s remarks could have rendered him toxic in the eyes of Fox’s viewers. Fortunately (for both Carlson and Fox), Fox did not report on developments in the Dominion litigation so that statements revealing Carlson’s feelings toward Trump might not have even come to the attention of Trump’s supporters. Nevertheless, to mitigate any possible fall-out, following the initial publication of his remarks by the mainstream media, Carlson arranged a buddy-buddy meeting with Trump in which the two declared their mutual admiration. As more fully explained below, even this faux pas was probably not the cause underlying the cancellation of Carlson’s show.
A few days after Fox had announced the cancellation of Carlson’s program The New York Times published a story that the Board of Fox News, after consulting with legal counsel, had acted in response to its viewing of a previously undisclosed text sent by Carlson. In that text Carlson had expressed racist views as well as his views on the use of violence to achieve political goals. Specifically, Carlson related his reaction to a video of a trio of white men attacking a lone individual whom he identified as “an Antifa kid.” Although his initial reaction was that “This is not how white men act,” he went on to confess that “I found myself rooting for the mob, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid.” While it’s not hard to understand why Fox News’ Board might have been offended by Carlson’s recollection of this incident, it’s nevertheless difficult to believe that this is what drove the decision to cancel Carlson’s show.
The problem with the explanation reported in The Times article is that such views were clearly evident in Carlson’s on-air presentations and were well-known to the management of Fox News long before the Dominion trial had begun. More importantly, Carlson’s views on violence and race relations were irrelevant to the Dominion litigation and were unlikely to be disclosed in a trial. This undoubtedly explains why they had not been disclosed in Dominion’s pre-trial filings. For this reason, they do not appear to be the impetus underlying either the Dominion settlement or the cancellation of Carlson’s show. The Times article also makes reference to an accumulation of problems posed by Carlson including his criticisms of Fox News’ executives, specifically Suzanne Scott, the company’s CEO.
In reality, the decision to cancel Carlson’s show was undoubtedly made by Rupert Murdock and simply approved by the Fox News Board owing to the financial importance of that action. Although The Times article implies that the decision was prompted by an investigation conducted by Fox’s outside attorneys, that also doesn’t seem likely. Law firms don’t make business decisions; they only give advice regarding the legal ramifications of business decisions. In this case, their advice was likely confined to whether the decision to cancel Carlson’s show was justifiable under the terms of Carlson’s employment agreement. Fox’s lawyers also undoubtedly opined on the likelihood that Carlson would seek legal redress against Fox News and the potential likelihood of success and financial impact of any such action.
The cancellation of Carlson’s show clearly left a gaping hole in Fox News’ evening programing and Fox News wasted no time in beginning its search for a replacement host to fill that void. As expected, it is auditioning its existing stable of talent, beginning with Brian Kilmeade, a co-anchor on its long-running Fox and Friends morning show. So far the results have been disappointing with Newsweek reporting that Fox’s viewership during the 8:00-9:00pm slot has dropped by almost 50%. Surely a significant loss of viewers was expected and it may take time for Fox News to find a host that can even begin to build an audience at that hour that will rival Carlson’s followers.
Fox was undoubtedly wise not to terminate Carlson’s employment, but rather to simply cancel his show and continue to pay his $25 million annual salary through the end of 2024. In this way Carlson will be severely limited in his ability to lead his followers to a competing media organization. This consequence was not lost on Carlson who immediately sought offers from competing right-wing media organizations, one or two of which have reportedly offered him an even higher salary. This prompted Carlson to try to negotiate an end to his contract, something that was of little interest to Fox News. Carlson undoubtedly appreciates that the longer he remains off the air the more of his followers who will become comfortable with other right-wing political pundits and his value as a political commentator will decline.
Faced with this problem, Carlson has begun to publish a series of comments on Twitter in the hope that this will slow the loss of his followers. The problem is that even persistent Twitter posts is not the equivalent of an hour of prime-time television five nights a week. Moreover, Elon Musk, Twitter’s sole owner, has made it clear that Carlson is not under contract with Twitter and he does not seem to be in any hurry to enter into such a contract which would likely precipitate a lawsuit by Fox News for interfering with its contractual relationship with Carlson.
This raises the question as to why Fox didn’t seek to discredit Carlson by basing its decision to cancel his program on his unflattering remarks about Trump. This may be another place where the Fox lawyers fit in. They have undoubtedly counseled that as long as Carlson’s contract remains in effect, no other media company is likely to engage Carlson out of fear of incurring litigation with Fox. They probably also advised that by taking positive steps to discredit Carlson Fox News might precipitate a lawsuit by Carlson seeking to break his contract. Surely, the last thing Fox News needs now is another lawsuit. That’s because still hanging over its head is the $2.7 billion suit by Smartmatic which is not expected to be tried until 2025.
Faced with the unlikelihood of being retained by another network, Carlson is reported to now also be exploring the possibility of starting his own network, which also appears to be an unlikely prospect as long as he remains under contract with Fox News.
In the meantime, Lachlan Murdock announced that Fox News is not contemplating any further changes in its programming. This means that, with the exception of Lou Dobbs, who is named as a co-defendant in the Smartmatic litigation, all on-air prime-time hosts on Fox News will remain in place. More importantly, Fox News will continue its staunch support of the personalities and agenda of the Republican Party. In all probability, however, Fox News will be adopting rules limiting the content of internal communications, both written and oral, as well as mechanisms for enforcing those rules.
All of this still leaves unanswered why Fox News chose to silence Carlson. The answer may lie buried in the allegations made by Abby Grossberg in her sexual harassment suit. I’m not referring to what she said about Carlson’s racist, antisemitic or even his misogynistic statements or actions, but rather to Carlson’s assertions about his professed ability to control the fates of Republican politicians. There has always been an undeclared rivalry between Donald Trump and Rupert Murdock over who controls the Republican voter base. In remarks quoted by Grossberg, however, Carlson proclaimed that he had the power to catapult Republican politicians to stardom or to destroy their political careers. While Rupert Murdock can obviously tolerate a lot of personal and publicly offensive remarks and behavior, an internal competitor for his control Fox News’ political influence may have been more than he was willing to tolerate.