Although Fox News cancelled Tucker Carlson Tonight, America’s most influential pundit is still on the network payroll.
And that is the essence of the dilemma.
[SEE BREAKING-NEWS UPDATE BELOW]
Tucker, who hosted the network’s top-rated show, is apparently ready to either launch an independent platform or join an existing one, but the still-operative FNC contract stands in the way.
In an Axios article with the somewhat misleading headline “Scoop: Tucker Carlson ready to torch Fox News,” the liberal-left news organization reported that “Carlson is busy plotting a media empire of his own. But he needs Fox to let him out of his contract, which expires in January 2025 — after the presidential election.”
Axios added that “Carlson confidants say he also is contemplating building a direct-to-consumer media outlet where his millions of fans could pay to watch him.”
Given the millions of Tucker’s fans, especially considering that FNC ratings have cratered without him, a subscription-based channel would be an immediate success.
The opening paragraph of the above-mentioned article claimed that “Tucker Carlson is preparing to unleash allies to attack Fox News in an effort to bully the network into letting him work for — or start — a right-wing rival, sources close to him tell Axios.”
Again, despite the lurid, if not contradictory, headline, Axios pointed out that he has asked his allies to refrain, at least for now, from attacking Fox News. “He’s been saying: ‘No. I want to get this done quiet and clean.’ “
A friend supposedly claimed, however, according to Axios, that “Now, we’re going from peacetime to Defcon 1. His team is preparing for war. He wants his freedom.”
OANN and The Blaze have already made overtures. The struggling-for-relevance NewsNation channel as well as Newsmax are supposedly interested in his services. A Rumble deal is also supposedly on the table.
YouTube channel Valuetainment has also offered Tucker a sweet deal, including an equity stake in the company.
“Axios has learned that Carlson and Elon Musk had a conversation about working together, but didn’t discuss specifics,” the news outlet also claimed.
Twitter used to have a video app for users called Periscope, and there are rumors that Musk might bring it back.
Last week, Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly publicized the hashtag #Foxweiser, comparing the Murdoch’s massive, audience-shredding blunder to the lost market share for Bud Light after a controversial promo.
It’s obvious that Foxweiser is none the wiser for effectively firing Carlson.
Tucker’s lawyer Bryan Freedman, the same barrister who negotiated Kelly’s exit from NBC with a full contract payout after her failed attempt at becoming a daytime diva, definitely claimed that “The idea that anyone is going to silence Tucker and prevent him from speaking to his audience is beyond preposterous.”
On her podcast, Megyn Kelly more or less implied that Tucker Carlson should call Fox’s bluff and break the contract especially because he doesn’t need the remaining contract money.
According to Kelly in the video clip embedded below, “the Carlson team believes Fox News is not negotiating in good faith. And they are counting on allies to go out there send a message to Fox News…the word boycott is being used…”
She provided receipts that overall Fox News ratings, since the Carlson departure, “continue to be in the toilet,” especially in the advertiser-coveted demo. Prime-time ratings are “disgusting” for FNC right now, she declared.
“They want Tucker to sit there on his coach and just cash his Fox checks and basically be immobilized by Fox News, be rendered mute, where he can’t say anything…”
She also raised questions about his actual status with Fox News parent News Corp., since the latter has not publicly provided a rationale for its decision.
“If they had cause to fire him, they’d cancel the show, they’d fire Tucker, they would not pay him the money, and they could keep him silent. That’s like all the best of the worlds. But they didn’t do that. Even they know they didn’t have cause, notwithstanding the bullsh*t leaks you’re reading about…”
She continued: “So they’re really hoping that Tucker will either just abide by it to get his 30 million bucks or that he’ll breach. And they don’t have to pay him anything, and they’ll take him to court to try to silence him. And that’s what I think Tucker should do.”
“Tucker should breach. He should come out; he should talk. He should start a rival news network. He should quit; he should forfeit the money. He’ll make more money anyway, whether it’s Rumble, Newsmax, Patrick Bet-David’s organization, launching his own situation, any of it…and then let Fox News take him to court. And the sole issue will be whether they have the right to silence him for the entire election season: The guy who served them loyally for a decade. The guy who kept them number one in the 8 p.m. [Eastern] time slot after losing Bill O’Reilly…”
Silencing Carlson is “an FU” to Tucker’s fans, Kelly insisted.
“So unless Tucker’s fans do a hard pass on the 8 and the entire primetime, and perhaps the channel, they’re not gonna bend the knee. Fox News is gonna continue to torture the guy and make him sit on the sidelines. Yes, I understand it’s not torture to pay him 30 million bucks, but he doesn’t want the money. As you may know, Tucker is independently wealthy anyway. He wants to get out there and do the news…there’s no cause for termination. He just wants to keep using his voice for you…the whole thing is grossly unfair.”
The similarly independently wealthy Kelly recalled how she left Fox News for NBC on the best of terms, but they tried, unsuccessfully, in getting her to sign a nondisclosure agreement. “They withheld a couple of months of my salary even though they owed it to me.”
As mentioned above, a Tucker subscription channel would be an instant triumph, even during a cost-of-living crisis. Note that there are many popular content creators on YouTube who have created censorship-free Rumble channels as a replacement or as an adjunct.
Moreover, for additional monetization, YouTubers offer additional content on paid basis on, e.g., Patreon or Locals.
There is obviously a limit to how many such subscriptions, however, a consumer can afford.
It’s roughly similar to the need for the various movie streamers to eventually consolidate.
In a brief but compelling video message to his fans on April 26, Tucker Carlson concluded by saying “see you soon.”
UPDATE: Tucker announced today that his new show is launching on Twitter
“Starting soon we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” he said., again signing off with “See you soon.”
Axios is reporting that “Tucker Carlson, two weeks after being ousted by Fox News, accused the network Tuesday of fraud and breach of contract — and made a host of document demands that could precede legal action.
Axios is now reporting the following development:
Tucker Carlson, two weeks after being ousted by Fox News, accused the network Tuesday of fraud and breach of contract — and made a host of document demands that could precede legal action.The aggressive letter from his lawyers to Fox positions Carlson to argue that the noncompete provision in his contract is no longer valid — freeing him to launch his own competing show or media enterprise…The Twitter move would seem to technically violate Carlson’s contract with Fox, but his lawyers’ letter effectively holds that Fox breached the contract first.
