In most publicly-traded corporations executives can easily manipulate their public disclosures for at least a short period of time to disguise their failures from becoming major stories.
But in the media industry, especially network news, the entire world knows how well each corporation performs each day thanks to daily TV ratings and online data.
So when Fox News tried bragging about its post-Tucker Carlson “success,” they just ended up making total fools of themselves.
Since Fox News announced that it had “parted ways” with the most influential personality in traditional media, Tucker Carlson, the network’s ratings have collapsed.
On top of millions of Fox News viewers choosing not to support the network’s rotating cast of replacement hosts in the 8:00 P.M. Carlson previously dominated, millions of Fox News viewers have simply chosen to turn the channel off altogether.
Needless to say, the network’s executives are desperately looking for any bit of good news they can find.
As a result, Fox News has apparently decided to try to play up how great it is that the most watched primetime cable news host in America’s exit has increased its appeal amongst woke corporate advertisers.
You see, after Tucker Carlson Tonight burst onto the scene shortly after the 2016 election, the woke left-wing outrage mob put the host in its crosshairs.
Still relishing in taking the proverbial scalp of former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, who Carlson’s show replaced, the woke outrage mob ran the typical left-wing playbook of threatening that there’d be nationwide boycotts if corporations continued buying commercials during the network’s 8:00 P.M. hour.
And as they’ve done since Occupy Wall Street, many corporations bent the knee to the Left’s demands, indefinitely pulling advertising from Carlson’s show.
At the same time, there were still droves of corporations who lined up to advertise during Carlson’s show, as his more than 3 million nightly viewers dwarfed other programming during that time.
In fact, according to Vivvix, an ad spending tracker, despite the woke outrage mob’s efforts, advertisers spent around $77.5 million on Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2022, more than $20 million more than Fox News’ other top primetime shows, Hannity and The Ingraham Angle, which drew $50.4 million and $53.7 million that same year respectively.
So it was a rather curious decision for Fox News to issue a statement celebrating the fact that woke corporations are rushing to advertise in its 8:00 P.M. timeslot now that Carlson is gone.
“We have had over 40 new advertisers come into the hour since we launched the new program, including some of the largest in the country and, really, across all major categories,” Fox News executive vice president of sales Jeff Collins told Variety. “We have seen new advertisers come in, and new demand.”
According to Variety’s reporting, that includes woke corporations like Procter & Gamble, who previously ran advertisements for men’s razors in which a father teaches his biological daughter, who identifies as a transgender man, how to shave.
“Procter & Gamble, one of the nation’s largest and most influential advertisers, has been running ads in ‘Fox News Tonight,’ the network’s new 8 p.m. program, for female-skewing products like Venus razor blades by Gillette and Secret underarm deodorant,” Variety reported. “Also showing up in commercial breaks: Novo Nordisk’s trendy medication Ozempic, and Scotts Miracle-Gro.”
Despite Fox News Tonight, which replaced Tucker Carlson Tonight in the 8:00 P.M. hour, bringing in less than 50% of Carlson’s average audience on even its best days, Collins went on to claim that the rotating cast of hosts – who while undoubtedly being fine people, just don’t come close to being as big of a star – were somehow better for the network because the “risk” associated with Carlson was gone, bringing woke corporations back into the fold.
“It takes a lot of audience risk out, because the audience is familiar with these personalities and knows them from other programming,” Collins claimed. “We know from a program perspective that they are going to resonate with the audience and advertisers have a familiarity with them as well.”
Of course, it is important to note that the amount networks can charge advertisers for commercials, no matter if they’re a small mom and pop shop or a multi-billion woke corporation, is predicated on the network’s viewership numbers.
While woke corporations may be coming back to Fox News now that Carlson has gone, the fact that he took more than half his audience with him, and other shows throughout Fox News’ daily lineup has been affected, there’s literally no chance the network is in a better situation with him.
Even if the woke corporations coming back into the fold are paying a premium to advertise with on an inferior show – spoiler alert: they’re definitely not – it simply wouldn’t be enough to bridge the gap.
That’s just math.
But considering the way things are going for the network, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Fox News made total fools of themselves by trying to pretend they were better off without Tucker Carlson.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
