Fox News Gambled, but Tucker Can Still Take Down the House

NYT OPINION: Fox News Gambled, but Tucker Can Still Take Down the House
By Jason Zengerle
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 28, 2023 at 03:00AM

The cable host has left Fox News. But his dark and outsize influence on the conservative movement — and on American politics — is hardly over.

For the quarter-century-plus that the Fox News Channel has been coming into America’s living rooms, it has operated according to a cardinal tenet: No one at the cable network is bigger than Fox News itself. It’s a lesson Glenn Beck, Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly all learned the hard way after they left Fox and saw their fame and influence (if not their fortunes) evaporate. Once the biggest names in cable news, they now spend their days wandering in the wilderness of podcasts and third-tier streaming platforms. Even Roger Ailes, Fox News’s original architect and the man who devised — and then ruthlessly enforced — the no-one-bigger-than rule, discovered that he was expendable when Rupert Murdoch pushed him out as Fox’s chairman and chief executive in 2016 amid sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Ailes soon disappeared to a mansion in Florida and, less than a year later, died in exile from the media world he’d once commanded. When Fox News abruptly fired Tucker Carlson, the network’s most popular prime-time host and the most powerful person in conservative media, many savvy press critics predicted the same fate for him: professional oblivion. Mr. Carlson had himself once replaced Ms. Kelly, and later Mr. O’Reilly, and each time he climbed to a new, better slot in the Fox News lineup he garnered bigger and bigger ratings. Now, according to the conventional wisdom, some new up-and-comer would inherit Mr. Carlson’s audience and replace him as the king (or queen) of conservative media. “The ‘talent’ at the Fox News Channel has never been the star,” Politico’s Jack Shafer wrote earlier this week. “Fox itself, which convenes the audience, is the star.”

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/opinion/tucker-carlson-fox.html

Fox News Gambled, but Tucker Can Still Take Down the House . For over 25 years, Fox News Channel has been a staple in American households, adhering to the principle that no one at the cable network is bigger than Fox News itself. Glenn Beck, Megyn Kelly, and Bill O'Reilly all learned this lesson the hard way, as they saw their fame and influence fade after leaving Fox. They now find themselves in the realm of podcasts and third-tier streaming platforms. Even Roger Ailes, the original architect of Fox News, discovered that he was expendable when Rupert Murdoch ousted him as Fox's chairman and chief executive in 2016 amid sexual harassment allegations.

When Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, the network's most popular prime-time host and the most powerful person in conservative media, many astute press critics predicted the same fate for him: professional oblivion. Carlson had replaced both Kelly and O'Reilly in the Fox News lineup, and his ratings increased each time he moved to a new, better slot. According to conventional wisdom, a new up-and-comer would inherit Carlson's audience and replace him as the king or queen of conservative media. Jack Shafer of Politico argued, "The 'talent' at the Fox News Channel has never been the star. Fox itself, which convenes the audience, is the star."