(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Post-Tucker Fox: Analysis, Predictions, and Unhelpful Advice [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-27 The face you make when mama tells you to eat your broccolis (source: Rolling Stones) Wherever you lean politically, you cannot deny the influence Tucker Carlson had on our political discourse. Barring Walter Cronkite’s Vietnam War editorial which led President LBJ to forfeit a second term, no other television personality can lay claim to having so radically shifted the dynamics at play in the most powerful city in the world. It would have surely been nice had Tucker wielded this power for the greater good. But he did not. Tucker was a textbook demagogue. He made you angry, but offered no solutions. He made you blame the declining American way of life on black and gay people and immigrants. He got you so worked up over the very existence of the trans community that you failed to realize the very party he supports is the reason your wages have stagnated & your relatives are going bankrupt paying their medical bills. But what separates him from your regular far right lunatic on Rumble or Fox’s many shameless drones for the interests of the business elite was the sheer size of his influence - 3.2 million viewers as of his shocking exit. An inconvenient truth some on the left refuse to accept is that Tucker is popular with the freaks and psychopaths of the far right — the same people setting the national Republican Party agenda and narrative. What Tucker says they say too. What they say Tucker will say too. When Fox audiences soured on the channel in the wake of the 2020 election, many spared Tucker their scorn. When Fox became too “woke” for the extremists they groomed Tucker was cast online as a truth teller in a crowd of RINO communists like (I kid you not) Sean Hannity. This is also reflected in the bread & butter of cable news, their ratings figures. The numbers are in and they are absolutely BRUTAL. Here is a snapshot of Fox’s demo 6-11pm primetime numbers for the last three Tuesdays: Baier: 285/282/216 Watters: 294/244/158 Carlson: 471/481/149 Hannity: 282/290/163 Ingraham: 258/208/166 Gutfeld: 272/266/249 Overall: 337/326/159 (source: Mediaite) The takeaway here? Take away Tucker and you see primetime numbers overall be slashed more than 50% and his 8pm timeslot go from out-rating the runner up (Hannity & Watters) by almost 200k viewers to literally being its lowest rated hour. The numbers are so bad some daytime shows (Outnumbered: 163, Cavuto: 151) outrated Kilmeade, who’s obviously woefully incapable of providing the same supply of radical condensed hate & vitriol Tucker provided every weeknight for the last 6 years. As a matter of fact, per CNN’s Oliver Darcy, the sinkhole left behind by Tucker’s dismissal is so bad Fox News had their worst 8pm Tuesday demo delivery in 22 years. Essentially, the last time Fox did this badly was when Fox didn’t even have any subscribers. Kilmeade finished third behind MSNBC’s Chris Hayes & CNN’s Anderson Cooper while Tucker used to double them combined. So what’s next for Fox? Let’s revisit our numbers. From April 18 to 15, Baier saw a net loss of 66k viewers; Watters lost 86k; Tucker’s former timeslot lost 332k (69% drop); Hannity lost 127k, Ingraham lost 42k; lastly, Gutfeld lost 17k - the least by an extremely wide margin. My not-so serious take? Move Gutfeld to 8pm. Groom him into the new face of Fox to replace Tucker. What better show is there to represent the Fox brand to cable and satellite providers amid negotiations to raise cable subscriber fees? A partisan, pretentious “comedy” show that has spent the last 2 years desperately convincing you it identifies as funny. It would be the perfect show to symbolize the devolution of the Fox News (sic) Channel from a vaguely honest effort at creating a conservative-leaning rival to CNN to the bumbling, comedic fascist propaganda it became under Obama with a formula it only perfected under the Trump Administration. My serious take? Let them burn. In the words of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, “You get what you fucking deserve”. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/27/2166177/-The-Post-Tucker-Fox-Analysis-Predictions-and-Unhelpful-Advice Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/