CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy cited some stunning data showing a precipitous drop in Fox News’s ratings after the network announced Tucker Carlson’s departure on Monday.
Carlson was the top-rated cable news host, but sources said he was fired after Fox News executives learned he called a senior communications executive at the company a “cunt” in a private message that was redacted in a court filing by Dominion Voting Systems, which sued Fox for defamation. Fox settled last week for $787.5 million.
Fox News’s ratings have faltered this week, which Darcy discussed on Wednesday’s AC360 on CNN’s
“I think it’s also noteworthy, Anderson, that without Carlson in the 8 p.m. hour over at Fox News, the ratings over there are really collapsing,” Darcy said. “Last night, in the key advertiser-supported, coveted 25 to 54 demo, they saw the worst ratings since pre-9/11. That’s a really staggering drop over at Fox News. The hour before it actually rated higher than the 8 p.m. hour, which is something of an anomaly over at Fox – something certainly that never happened when Tucker Carlson was in that hour.”
Nevertheless, Fox still won the 8 p.m. slot and beat out all CNN and MSNBC shows in total viewers on Tuesday.
“And so, I think as we’re watching this, it’s really interesting to see the ramifications it’s having at Fox and also at the smaller right-wing channel, Newsmax, which is seeing its ratings surge,” Darcy continued. And this is of course what led to the initial Dominion debacle, because Fox executives saw this other competitor rising. And that’s when they started to make some of these decisions that led to being sued ultimately by Dominion.”
Watch above via CNN.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
