Bloomberg: Tucker Carlson Is Out at Fox News

Fox News said Tucker Carlson, the host of its top-rated nightly show, will leave the network, effective immediately. Geetha Ranganathan of Bloomberg Intelligence talks about the bombshell announcement.

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Transcript

Just to repeat, the headline that is so impacting folks is stock right now, I’m paying a lot of meetings, a lot of people to be sitting up and paying attention. Fox News and Tucker Carlson are passing ways and this is effective. Alex, Friday, we’ve already seen the last show. Yeah.

So obviously this was extremely sudden. We don’t have details on where Tucker Carlson was going. This comes off the heels of the 787 million dollar settlement that Fox agreed to with Dominion. And at that time, Fox said there would be no changes to its to its company or

How it is handling things. But it looks like this is definitely a big change. We don’t know, though, how and where this wound up coming about. However, it leaves an enormous hole in the middle of Fox Broadcasting. Absolutely. And I suspect their sales team, their advertising teams are going to be

Scrambling now to figure out exactly what they’re going to do. He was a he was central to in so many ways, the case that the Fox had. How does that change? What is the value of Fox going to look

Like as a result of this? I think is a real really sort of huge imponderable right now as we try to work out what has happened here. And we also don’t know which side this has come from. How did this come about? Obviously, as you say, that Amendment

Dominion Settlements was a huge, huge moment for this company. Have they taken the initiative here or was this with or was this a decision that Tucker Carlson has made? Geeta Ranganathan joining us now on Bloomberg Intelligence from our media team to give us an idea of what is happening here.

Do you to give us an idea of the significance of this for Fox’s bottom line? No, this is a very, very big deal. Fox News is the major is a crown jewel, really, if the whole Fox empire. It brings in 75 percent of the company’s profit.

It is the most watched cable network in the U.S. has been now for about 10 years running and a huge part of that. I think they owe to their anchors and especially, you know, the popularity of Tucker Carlson. So this is this is huge.

You know, Fox News, of course, is one of the most profitable cable networks in the U.S. right now. How did the advertising contracts work? Like if I’m an advertiser on Tucker Carlson show, can I pull it immediately? Like how often in these contracts come up? Yes, you can.

You know, so that more and more flexibility is being built into these advertising contracts. So I think that you do. There is a slight amount of lead time, but obviously all of that advertising definitely is at risk right now. Well, with this announcement.

Well, in terms of replay, is it obvious? Could there be an obvious replacement for Tucker Carlson? Is there somebody that that kind of is sitting waiting in the wings here that could step up? How unique is he? How unique is the offering that he has

Brought? These are some really big shoes to fill. So remember, Dr. Carlson is one of the most watched anchors. He has brought in roughly about four million viewers every night. That is more than anybody else. So. So definitely I mean, I’m not really

Sure who could replace him immediately, but it’s going to be some pretty it’s going to be a pretty difficult thing for Fox News to do right away. So given the obvious question is, is this a firing due to what happened with Dominion or is Tucker Carlson leaving on his own?

And there’s no way for either of us to know that. However, based on what we know on the literal money that Tucker Carlson brings in. Would you be surprised if this was an act of firing? You know, he has been. He’s obviously one of the most provocative, one of the most

Controversial commentators, I think, on Fox News. But he’s also been one of like they’re, you know, a top attraction. I’m not sure, you know, if it’s a firing. But again, remember. Yes, he is. He’s a very, very important part of the news network.

But they do have other talents as well. I mean, if you just kind of think about it, the five is a is a show that has been, you know, a most watched and very popular. So. Yeah, not really. We don’t know.

I think I think we just don’t know. Is is is the really tricky part of all of this. We know very little as to what has happened internally here, but it does obviously change the dynamic going into the general election next year. How important is this kind of all these

Next few months, this next year as we run in towards the 2024 election? How big a hole does he leave at this critical moment and how important is this critical year? It is. It is definitely a very big deal, because what we’ve seen typically with

Fox News is, you know, a lot of buzz keeps building into an election year and we see kind of readings skyrocket, especially when you have a presidential election and one that is as important as the one that we’re heading into. So definitely I mean, it’s going to be a big deal.

Remember, again, this is this is a network that brings and that throws off about two and a half billion dollars and EBITDA again, which bills again into an election year especially. Advertising dollars. I mean, Alex, and you brought that up, advertising becomes really, really

Critical for them. And then again, with this whole it is going to be difficult.

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