©AP Photo / Richard Drew
Tucker Carlson will no longer be able to carry on his self-generated battle against lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink at Fox News Channel.
Fox News announced on Monday that the network and its prime-time anchor Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to end their association after more than a decade.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” the US broadcaster said, adding that Carlson aired his final show last Friday.
Carlson, Fox News Channel’s most-watched primetime host, will leave the network in an abrupt and surprise exit, leaving the network without a fill-in for one of its most popular hours and with dozens of questions hanging over it as it grapples with pressures resulting from a $787 million settlement it will have to pay to Dominion Voting Systems
Fox expressed gratitude to Carlson “for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the company said in a statement Monday. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.” A spokeswoman for Fox News declined to elaborate.
Carlson will not appear on Fox News again in his current role. His last broadcast, Fox News said, took place on Friday –meaning he will not be given the opportunity to bid viewers farewell.
Neither Fox nor Carlson have offered an explanation for the break-up. The network did say that last Friday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight will be the last, and that a newscast will be aired in its stead starting Monday evening.
Shares in the network’s parent company, Fox Corporation, slid by 4.7% after the announcement.
Carlson had given no hints of the show ending last week, announcing instead a new season of his documentary series for Fox, titled Tucker Carlson Originals. On Friday, he gave a keynote speech at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, again not mentioning anything about parting ways with Fox.
The host’s exit comes just days after corporate parent Fox Corp. agreed to pay $787.5 million in a settlement to Dominion Voting Systems after being accused of defaming the ballot-technology company by passing along specious conspiracy theories about its role in the 2020 presidential election. Carlson, who has passed along reports tilting at the veracity of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020 and filled Fox News’ 8 p.m. hour with a litany of diatribes against subjects ranging from Black Lives Matter to Senator Tammy Duckworth over the years, was expected to have to testify in the matter and the goings-on at his show were expected to be analyzed in a separate suit Fox is navigating involving Abby Grossman, a former producer.
Fox News appears to be cleaning house of some of its most rightward-leaning elements. Last week, the network failed to come to renewal terms with weekend host Dan Bongino, a popular pundit in ultra-conservative circles.
Rivals will likely seize on Carlson’s absence. “For a while Fox News has been moving to become establishment media and Tucker Carlson’s removal is a big milestone in that effort,” said Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the conservative news outlet Newsmax, in a statement on Monday. “Millions of viewers who liked the old Fox News have made the switch to Newsmax and Tucker’s departure will only fuel that trend.”
In the absence of an official explanation, there has been widespread speculation that the break-up might be related to a recent lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems. The company had sued the network for defamation in a Delaware court, alleging that Fox hosts had promoted “baseless” claims by former president Donald Trump about the 2020 election. Fox settled the lawsuit for $787.5 million last week.
Over the weekend, a prominent congresswoman also argued Carlson should not be allowed on air under federal law.
“When you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence – very clearly incitement of violence. And that is the line that we have to be willing to contend with,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, told former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, now a host on the rival cable channel MSNBC.
Declaring itself “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink,” Carlson’s evening show first aired in 2016 and quickly became the most popular in the Fox News lineup. In June 2020, he set the record for the highest-rated quarter of any cable news program, averaging 4.33 million viewers. His recent interview with Donald Trump drew an audience of 6.7 million.
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